Meteorite DefinitionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most
meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids. When it enters
the atmosphere, impact pressure causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star.
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February 20, 2019
NASA asteroid WARNING: 500-metre meteorite barrelling towards Earth THIS
AFTERNOON
US space agency NASA has identified the asteroid, nicknamed 1999 VF22, as
potentially dangerous. This is because asteroid will make an Earth Close
Approach this afternoon. And NASA asteroid trackers have pinpointed the
exact moment the colossal space rock will skim the Earth today. Stargazers
cannot, however, expect to spot 1999 VF22 with an ordinary telescope.

And the asteroid will do so at breakneck speeds of around 60,000mph.Read
More
February 18, 2019
Meteor fireball shoots through sky above Kent and seen from FIVE countries
A FIREBALL has been seen over several UK counties and even across Europe in
a mesmerising display from the skies.

The bright light was seen shooting across the skies on February 15, at 8.30
PM GMT, with reports of it also being seen in Germany, Belgium, The
Netherlands and France. The fireball was a result of a meteorite hitting the
Earth’s atmosphere at 160,000 mph, causing it to explode upon impact.
Scientists from the countries which saw it are now working together to
uncover more information about the space rock.
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February 17, 2019
Large meteor streaked across Florida, into Atlantic Ocean, scientists say
MELBOURNE, Fla. - Experts say a fireball streaking across the night sky over
central Florida this week was a large meteor.

Spalding Allsky Camera Network Director Dwayne Free says the meteor was up
to a foot wide and exploded over the Atlantic Ocean with a force equal to
100 tons of TNT.

Florida Today reports the fireball was seen around 2 a.m. Tuesday along
Florida's Space Coast from Titusville to Palm Bay.
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February 12, 2019
Was that a meteor? Space Coast residents buzz about green streak, bright
flash in the sky
The 45th Weather Squadron confirmed with FLORIDA TODAY that it was a meteor
passing through the night sky early Tuesday morning. — Space Reporter
Antonia Jaramillo

Original story: So ... what was that and did you see it?
A number of Space Coast residents from Titusville to Palm Bay took to social
media to describe seeing an apparent meteor streak across the skies Tuesday
morning, creating an otherworldly burst of green as it passed over.

A National Weather Service meteorologist based in Melbourne could not verify
the reports but watched a surveillance video posted by a person living in
the Eau Gallie area. The black and white video captured the bright streak
blazing below the horizon, with a time stamp of 2:07 a.m. Tuesday.
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February 06, 2019
Coloradans report seeing “fireball in the sky” across the state Thursday
night
DENVER – If you weren’t looking up, you probably missed getting a glimpse of
a meteorite falling across the Colorado sky Thursday evening.

Several people along I-70 called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office early
Thursday evening to report a “fireball in the sky.”

Calls about the astronomical event also came from Conifer, a spokesperson
for the sheriff’s office told Denver7.
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February 02, 2019
Meteorites strike western Cuba
Havana, Cuba (CNN) — A meteor broke apart over western Cuba on Friday,
hurtling numerous pieces of various sizes to the ground in several towns in
Pinar del Rio province, the state-run Granma newspaper reported.

One meteorite landed with a "loud explosion" in the town of Viñales, Granma
said.

Researchers from several Cuban agencies, including the Institute of
Geophysics and Astronomy, confirmed the meteorite strikes, Granma reported.
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February 01, 2019
Rare heart-shaped meteorite up for auction ahead of Valentine’s Day
Forget chocolates: What’s a better way to show that special someone your
appreciation for them than with a heart-shaped meteorite? For a hefty sum,
the 320 million-year-old rarity could be yours.

British auction house Christie’s announced the so-called “Heart of Space”
will be up for auction starting Feb. 6 through Feb. 14, which also happens
to be Valentine's Day.
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January 22, 2019
Watch the moon get rocked by a meteorite during this weekend's lunar eclipse
A total lunar eclipse wowed skywatchers over the weekend, but for some
keen-eyed observers, Sunday’s “blood moon” came with an extra special treat:
the first known sighting of a meteorite smashing into the moon during a
lunar eclipse.

The eclipse, which occurred overnight on Jan. 20-21, was streamed live
online by several organizations, including the Griffith Observatory in Los
Angeles and the Virtual Telescope Project. During the broadcast, at around
11:41 p.m. ET, some viewers noticed a brief flash of light in the top left
quadrant of the moon.
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January 16, 2019
Dozens report seeing meteor over Maine, northern New England
A meteor almost surely traveled across the sky over northern New England
early Wednesday night, substantiated by numerous reports in the area.

At least two dozen people from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts
submitted fireball reports though the American Meteor Society's website.

Reports were submitted from 5:20 p.m. to 6:04 p.m., indicating the flash
happened at about 5:15 p.m. Most people said it lasted for 3.5 seconds.
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January 12, 2019
Sisters find possible meteorite on Silver Beach
NEW JERSEY - A Monmouth County woman and her sister found what they believe
to be a meteorite on the beach.

Jean and Nora Muchanic came across a rock, which looks like it's been dipped
in tar on Silver Beach Friday afternoon.

The American Meteorological Society received nearly 580 reports from across
the east coast about a bright falling fireball Wednesday evening.
Read More,
Findings of Meteorite
January 09, 2019
What was that fireball that flew across the East Coast sky Wednesday
morning?
A fireball is not a mere colloquialism. It is an actual astronomical term,
and nearly 200 people on the East Coast reported seeing one in broad
daylight Wednesday morning.

The nonprofit American Meteor Society collected more than 190 reports in
seven states, including Pennsylvania, of a fireball — a meteor that burns
brighter than the planet Venus — rocketing across a small section of the sky
above the Delaware coast around 11:35 a.m.

From one vantage point in New Jersey, the fireball remained in sight for
less than 10 seconds.
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January 05, 2019
Meteor seen flying over New Zealand
A meteor shower has been seen shooting across New Zealand skies.

It was seen above Tauranga on Saturday night and was captured on live
cameras covering the Black Caps game against Sri Lanka at Mt Maugnanui.

Stephanie Thwaites saw the meteor shower in Te Puke.
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January 02, 2019
Greenland crater: Huge crater the size of Paris FOUND under Greenland's ice
Greenland, known as the world’s largest island, has a nature entirely
contradictory to its name and currently has a massive crater sitting at the
bottom of a thick layer of ice. More than 80 percent of the island’s surface
is ice, meaning there are huge amounts of yet undiscovered details
underneath. The latest discovery has been made by scientists using
ground-penetrating radar to peer underneath the ice sheet.
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December 24, 2018
Massive landslip that blocked a riverbed and formed a mound 500ft high in
Russia ‘was caused by a METEORITE or massive BOMB’ locals claim
A massive landfall in eastern Russia was caused by a meteorite, a falling
UFO or a massive bomb, it was claimed today.

First pictures from a remote location in Khabarovsk region show how the 390
mile long Bureya River was partially dammed by a monumental rock fall.

The top was severed from a large hill with rocks crashing down and forming a
new 525 ft-high mound in the river bed.
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December 20, 2018
Boom! goes the meteor, across Minnesota
Did you hear a loud boom or see a fireball streaking across the sky around 2
a.m. Thursday morning? Me neither.

But others did, and it's now being chalked up to a meteor, with fireball
sightings reported to the American Meteor Society from Chanhassen to Prior
Lake to Shakopee.
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December 19, 2018
Meteor seen across the state on Wednesday night
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — There was a strange sight in the sky Wednesday night,
which caught people's eyes from across the state. Initially it was thought
to have been a cloud, but according to the National Weather Service, the
strange formation may have been a meteorite.

The National Weather Service Reno said that according to reports, it appears
that the light was likely a meteor or space debris entering the atmosphere.
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December 10, 2018
Meteor lights up the sky over Mexico City
Mexican stargazers have been treated to the ultimate curtain-raiser for the
stunning cosmic light show expected to brighten the night skies later this
week.

A bright green ball of light shot over Mexico in the early hours of Saturday
morning, dazzling onlookers below.

The meteor could be seen hurtling through the skies over Acapulco and Mexico
City.
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December 03, 2018
Curiosity to study possible meteorite on Mars surface
Curiosity woke up to Mr Rogers' "Please would you be my neighbour" this
morning to welcome InSight, and then got busy at the Highfield drill site.
Curiosity will dump the Highfield sample, which requires several MAHLI looks
and an APXS operation, but the plan also requires swinging the arm out of
the way so other instruments can have their unobscured look at the dump
pile.

Of course, the main activity is to look at the Highfield dump pile with all
instruments available. APXS will get the chemistry, and Navcam, Mastcam and
MAHLI will have a close look. In addition, a Mastcam multispectral and a
ChemCam passive observation will add to the information collected from the
dump pile.
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December 01, 2018
MARTIAN MYSTERY Nasa’s Mars curiosity rover finds shiny ‘golden’ rock on red
planet
NASA’S Mars Curiosity rover has found an unusual, shiny lump on the Red
Planet’s surface.

Researchers believe the object “might be a meteorite because it is so
shiny”, according to a Nasa blog.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission’s spacecraft, the most technologically
advanced rover ever built, landed on a crater on August 5, 2012.

Since then it has been kept busy, working on its mission to determine
whether the Red Planet ever was - or is habitable - to microbial life.
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December 01, 2018
Meteorite warning: ASTONISHING moment blue FIREBALL rips through sky
THIS is the moment a fireball shot through the skies over the skiing county
of Veszprém in Hungary in an astonishing display witnessed in eight European
countries.

While the phenomenon only lasted a matter of seconds the cameras were able
to record the moment the sky turned bright blue as the fireball made its
appearance.

The bolide was also spotted in Vienna, where cameras filmed a cobalt blue
streak cut through the early morning sky at around 4 am GMT.

The striking event came after NASA warned an asteroid six-times longer than
a London double-decker bus will pass by Earth on Friday afternoon.
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November 20, 2018
Meteorite hunters dig up 60 million-year-old site in Skye
Efforts are to be made to protect part of a 60-million-year-old meteorite
impact site in Skye.

Geologists believe deposits from the meteorite were dug up and taken away by
meteorite hunters earlier this month.

Dr Simon Drake, who discovered the impact site with colleague Dr Andy Beard
in 2017, said he was appalled by the damage.

He said plans were being made to shield the affected area, which is only a
few metres across, with reinforced glass.
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November 15, 2018
Giant meteorite crater bigger than Paris found beneath Greenland’s ice sheet
A giant crater that was formed when a meteorite smashed into Earth, has been
uncovered deep below Greenland’s ice sheets.

The 31-kilometre-wide cavity was discovered by an international team of
scientists who believe it was caused by a “rare” meteorite that struck Earth
as recently as 12,000 years ago.
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November 10, 2018
Five huge 'hazardous' asteroids are coming - and one is the size of a
skyscraper
A series of asteroids are whizzing towards us at an alarmingly close range.

NASA tracks all the cosmic debris that comes anywhere near our planet so
that action can be taken if there is any threat of impact.

Most of the imminent asteroids are the size of a bus or large house - though
one is a whopper that's as big as a 50-storey skyscraper.

In total there will be five asteroids in the next few days that are within
the distance that makes them a "potentially hazardous object."
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November 09, 2018
Professional Meteorite Hunter believes space rock pieces are between
Chadwick-Bradleyville
CHADWICK, Mo. If you were wondering if the meteor fireball seen over the
Ozarks last week had any fragments make it to earth, the answer may have
been provided by the a small school district just off Highway 125 in
Christian County.

The Chadwick schools have security cameras on their playground, and the
district's IT director got an interesting phone call this week.

"Chase, I've got a weird request," Chadwick IT Director Chase Hampton
recalled when his principal got off the phone. "He told me he wanted me to
look at the security camera videos to try and find shadows of a meteorite
passing over us."
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November 03, 2018
Fireball In The Sky! Locals Spot Huge Meteor Friday Night, As Earth Enters
Annual Taurid Shower
Lake of the Ozarks area residents say they saw a large fireball cross the
horizon at around 7:20 p.m. on Friday evening.

News outlets across Missouri and neighboring states, even into Alabama,
reported similar sightings Friday evening, though NASA has not released
information about the fireball meteor event.

Spotters reported what looked like a flash of bright light across the night
sky, and while some at first thought it was lightning, others say they knew
immediately it was something more special. At this time, there are no
reports of debris reaching the ground. The Taurid meteor showers annually
take place this time of year and peak in mid-November.
Read
More
October 25, 2018
The formation of large meteorite craters is unraveled
About 66 million years ago, a meteorite hit the Earth of the Yucatan
Peninsula in what is now Mexico. This event triggered a mass extinction that
eradicated approximately 75 percent of all species and ended the era of
dinosaurs. Like Prof. Dr. Ulrich Riller of the Institute of Geology of the
University of Hamburg and co-workers report in "Nature", the hitherto
mysterious formation of the crater and its mountainous peak ring. The peak
rises in the middle of the crater above the otherwise flat crater floor. In
the future, these findings can help to decipher the formation of the largest
craters in our solar system.
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October 21, 2018
Teen scientists went looking for meteorites in the Great Lakes. They found
another type of alien.
ON LAKE MICHIGAN - On a sunny July morning, a group of teenagers gathered in
a circle aboard a 71-foot research vessel named the Neeskay. The teens,
members of a scientific mission called the Aquarius Project, cheered:
"One . . . two . . . three . . . space rocks!"
The Aquarius Project, run by the students in collaboration with professional
researchers, operates out of Chicago's Adler Planetarium with help from the
nearby Shedd Aquarium and Field Museum. Together, they are attempting a
first in U.S. history: The recovery of meteorite fragments, or space rocks,
from the bottom of a lake hundreds of feet deep.
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October 20, 2018
12-pound lunar meteorite sells for more than $600,000
A 12-pound chunk of the moon that fell to the Earth as a lunar meteorite has
been sold at auction for more than $600,000.

Boston-based RR Auction announced Friday the $612,500 winning bid for the
meteorite, composed of six fragments that fit together like a puzzle, came
from a representative working with the Tam Chuc Pagoda complex in Ha Nam
Province, Vietnam.
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October 16, 2018
Australians find extremely rare mineral in meteorite impact crater
A group of scientists has discovered one of the rarest minerals on Earth
buried deep within what may be the largest-known meteorite impact crater in
Australia.

The ultra-rare mineral known as reidite was found by Curtin University
researchers in the long buried Woodleigh Crater near Shark Bay, Western
Australia, about 750 km. north of Perth.

Reidite only forms in rocks that experience the incredible pressure created
when rocks from space slam into the Earth’s crust, the team explains in a
paper published in the Geology journal.

The mineral starts as the common mineral zircon and transforms to reidite
during the pressure of impact, making it incredibly rare and only the
sixth-known crater on Earth where the mineral has been found.
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October 05, 2018
Meteorite worth $100,000 was used as doorstop for years
DETROIT – A meteorite worth about $100,000 had been used as a doorstop at a
Michigan farm for years, according to Central Michigan University.

Geology professor Mona Sirbescu of Central Michigan University first
identified the 22.5-pound chunk of iron as more than just a doorstop when
the owner asked her to look at it earlier this year. Although many people
had asked her to examine rocks in the past, this time was different.
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September 21, 2018
Meteorite hunting with Marc Fries
Thousands of meteorites fall onto the Earth each year. When a fall occurs in
an accessible area, scientists and amateur space enthusiasts pursue the
specimens, often submitting them to collections that serve planetary
research. The Astro materials Research and Exploration Science (ARES)
division at NASA's Johnson Space Center studies meteorites and is
implementing tools and technique to more easily recover meteorites.

We sat down with Dr. Marc Fries of ARES to learn more about meteorites and
why they matter.
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September 19, 2018
Fire Chief Finds Farm Hole in the Ground - Possible Meteroright
MIDWAY, Ar. - When fire chief Donald Tucker arrived at the scene early
Monday morning, it was exactly as a 911 caller had reported.

"When I got there, there were flames 8 or 9 feet high shooting out of a hole
about 2 feet in diameter," said Tucker, chief of the Midway, Arkansas,
Volunteer Fire Protection District. "It burned that way for 30 to 45 minutes
before it went out."
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September 17, 2018
Space rock taken from Skye's ancient meteorite impact site
Geologists have raised concern about rocks being taken from a
60-million-year-old meteorite impact site in Skye.

The deposit of meteoritic minerals discovered last year below layers of
lavas, just south of Broadford, had not previously been found on Earth.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) said it had been alerted to sales on the
internet of space rock from Skye.

It said removing any of the deposit was unauthorised and could contravene
the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
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September 14, 2018
Down to earth: Vatican brings together world's meteorite curators
Castel Gandolfo — Rocks, mineral debris and even dust from space are kept in
special collections, museums and laboratories all over the world, and the
Vatican Observatory took the first small step to help curators make a giant
leap in coordinating their efforts globally.

Staffed by a team of Jesuit scientists, the Vatican Observatory held the
first ever workshop on the curation and conservation of meteorites and
extraterrestrial samples -- that is, specimens gathered during missions in
space, like the Apollo moon rocks or stardust captured from a comet's tail.
Read More
September 03, 2108
Hole responsible for space station leak caused by drill, not meteorite,
Russia says
The hole that caused a slight air leak and a depressurization event on the
International Space Station last week was caused by a drill hole.

According to Russian media reports, the hole was accidentally drilled in the
Russian Soyuz spacecraft while it was still on the ground.
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September 01, 2108
After meteor lights up Perth sky, hunt begins for meteorite that crashed to
Earth
Two expeditions were mounted in the 1960s to find it.

But it was not until 1966 that geologists RB Wilson and AM Cooney found the
outer space debris. And it was huge.

There were two main pieces, made mainly of iron and nickel, found about 180
metres apart.
Read More
August 06, 2017
Mineral never seen on Earth found inside Russian meteorite
Gold hunters in southern Russia might have been disappointed to learn that
the speckled, yellow rock they uncovered was not a sizeable pebble of
valuable metal. Instead, it was a rare piece of space-borne rubble
containing a new mineral that had never before been seen on Earth.

The mineral came from the Uakit meteorite, named for the Russian location
where it was found. Scientists recently presented their discovery of the
meteorite's new mineral, named uakitite, at the Annual Meeting of the
Meteoritical Society in Moscow.
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August 06, 2017
Spectacular green meteor streaks over southern NSW
A chunk of space rock fell to earth in spectacular fashion on Saturday
night, prompting calls for videos and observations to help pinpoint its
resting place.

Reports from across NSW and Victoria spoke of a green fireball low in the
sky around 6.30pm, and travelling slowly and brightly enough to be clearly
seen by many.

David Finlay is a keen observer of astronomical events, and administrator of
the Australian Meteor Reports Facebook group.
Read More
August 03, 2018
Greenland Air Base Unharmed by Apparent Meteor Explosion
Thule Air Base in Greenland is operating normally after reports that a
possible meteorite exploded in the air above it, officials told Military.com
on Friday.

"There's been no impact to Thule Air Base," Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Hope
Cronin said in an email.

News outlets reported a meteorite exploded several miles from the base July
25 following tweets from space enthusiasts who tracked the explosion.

"Meteor explodes with 2.1 kilotons force 43 km above missile early warning
radar at Thule Air Base," tweeted Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear
Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists. Kristensen
this week tweeted about the event after a user, named "Rocket Ron,"
publicized that a "fireball was detected over Greenland on July 25, 2018 by
US Government sensors."
Read More
August 02, 2018
Watch Two Meteorites Hit the Moon!
Our nearest celestial neighbor just treated us to a light show. A sharp-eyed
telescope system in Spain spotted a pair of meteorite impacts on the moon in
mid-July, occurring just 24 hours apart — and you can even watch video of
the event online.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently posted footage of the pair of
flashes that occurred on July 17 and July 18. Although the flashes were
detected from Earth, the original meteoroids — fragments of the midsummer
Alpha Capricornids meteor shower — were probably each only the size of a
walnut, researchers said.
Read More
August 01, 2018
Ancient Meteorite Crystals Uncover The Mysteries Of The Sun’s Explosive
Youth
To the Earth, the sun is one of the biggest, most stable constants in the
universe as the heart of our solar system.

However, it wasn't always that way as new research confirms the sun's early
years were wild and explosive. Scientists describe these tumultuous years
akin to a toddler prone to tantrums during the infamous "terrible twos."

As Field Museum explains, the early years of the sun's life has long been a
mystery. After all, the sun is 4.6 billion years old and predates the Earth
by around 50 million years.

Thus, even with scientific advancements, it's nearly impossible to get ahold
of an object in the planet that has an imprint of those early days billions
of years ago. Even beyond Earth, hardly anything in the solar system has
existed as long as the sun.
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July 23, 2018
Chicago area teens build device to search Lake Michigan for meteorites
CHICAGO (WLS) -- On Feb. 6, 2017, a meteor -- believed to
be as big as a small car -- streaked across the sky above Wisconsin.
The atmosphere smashed it into thousands of little pieces, which fell in
Lake Michigan, according to radar. And then the hunt was on!

Teens with the Adler Planetarium's Aquarius Project are among those hunting.
On Tuesday, they will deploy their unique underwater sled to retrieve the
meteorites.

"We're thinking there are thousands of these marble to golf ball-size pieces
at the bottom of the lake," said Chris Bresky, who created the Aquarius
Project.
Read More
July 10, 2018
Nautilus Expedition Recovers Possible Seafloor Meteorites
On the evening of March 7, 2018, a bright meteor lit up the skies along
western Washington and Oregon. This event sent researchers scrambling, as it
was well documented by ocean-seafloor seismometers, NOAA NEXRAD weather
radar, sensor-buoy data, and eyewitness accounts. All of this pointed toward
an estimated 2-ton object that broke apart off the Washington coast and fell
as fragments into the sea. The fall was one of the largest seen on NOAA
NEXRAD radars in the more than two decades the system has been in operation.
Read More
July 09, 2018
Meteorite Hunters Find Remains of Last Month's Botswana Fireball
Last month, a fireball lit up the skies over Botswana just hours after
scientists first spotted the space rock hurtling toward Earth. Researchers
from Botswana, South Africa, Finland, and the United States have now found
pieces of the meteorite.

Scientists detected the six-foot-wide asteroid, called 2018 LA, on June 2
using the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. It hit the Earth eight hours
later. The researchers found the meteorite fragments in the Central Kalahari
Game Reserve on June 23, according to a University of Helsinki release.
Read More
July 04, 2018
Meteorite search off the Washington coast recovers two small fragments
If the discovery pans out, it will be the first time anyone has recovered
fragments of a known meteor from the ocean bottom. "I could not be happier,"
said NASA's curator of cosmic dust.

An eight-hour search of the seafloor off the Washington coast Monday yielded
two tiny fragments of molten rock that scientists suspect are remnants of a
meteor that exploded in a fireball and plummeted into the sea in March.
Read More
July 01, 2018
Two meteorite-like objects fall from sky in Muzaffarnagar village
Villagers in Kasoli village of Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district have
claimed two meteorites fell from the sky with a loud bang early on Thursday
after heavy rains in the area.

Sub-divisional magistrate (Sadar) Kumar Dharmendra sent an official to the
village, who took both the stones in his possession.

“Both the objects resembled quartz in appearance but their exact nature will
be ascertained after proper analysis. The stones will be sent to the Indian
Institute of Sciences (IISc) in Bangalore for analysis,” Muzaffarnagar’s
district magistrate Rajeev Sharma said.
Read More
June 18, 2018
Green meteorite burns up over Europe - right as the Foo Fighters were
finishing 'Monkey Wrench' at a festival
Concertgoers in the Netherlands were given a special performance when a
bright green meteorite came down during a Foo Fighters set.

Belgium's International Meteor Organization reported the object fell about
9.09pm local time - about 7.09am Sunday, NZT.

Drummer Taylor Hawkins was smashing out a drum solo at the end of their song
Monkey Wrench while performing at the Pinkpop festival in Landgraaf when the
meteorite streaked down from the sky with perfect timing.
Read More
June 17, 2018
‘It pierced the clouds’: Fireball spotted blazing over Europe
Music fans were given an unexpected surprise when a fiery meteorite
gatecrashed a set by the Foo Fighters during a Dutch music festival.

The American rockers were performing at Landgraaf’s Pinkpop festival when a
fireball streaked across the sky. The celestial ball of light is thought to
have been the same phenomenon observed in dozens of reports to the
International Meteor Organization (IMO).

Sebastiaan de Vet, an astronomer with the Meteor Working Group in Holland,
told RTL Nieuws that the phenomenon was likely a meteorite surrounded by
particles of grit.

Meanwhile, German astronomer Uwe Reichert has posted a stunning image
showing the shooting meteorite alongside the moon and a glimpse of the
planet Venus.
Read More
June 16, 2018
The meteorite ‘hunter’ who greets and shelters China’s visitors from the
cosmos
Yang Kexin has rejected numerous monetary offers for the meteor fragments
she has collected in the desert, preferring to share them with the public
for nothing

“What do stars in the sky look like? Can I pick them down?” the young Yang
Kexin would ask herself on summer nights, gazing up at the heavens from the
yard of her childhood home in southwest China’s rural Guizhou province.

As she grew up, her dream of gathering stars took a back seat to the more
earthly matters of adult life, but she never stopped thinking about those
remote incandescent bodies that illuminated the night sky.
Read More
June 05, 2018
Meteorites for sale at US$8,000 per gram after fireball near China-Myanmar
border sparks treasure hunt
About 200 meteorites have been recovered in southwestern China after a
fireball event occurred last Friday, leading to a rush to find and sell the
rare rocks, according to mainland media reports.

The fireball, or meteor, was seen about 9:40pm, when a ball of flame arched
across the sky near Xishuangbanna, an autonomous prefecture in Yunnan
province, bordering Myanmar and Laos, local media Yunnan.cn reported.
Read More
June 05, 2018
Villagers worship meteorite after it crashes down to Earth
A village in China has reportedly started worshipping a meteorite after it
came crashing down to Earth in a spectacular display.

There were two meteorites reported falling from the sky but only one came
crashing through the roof of a family home.

Man must go to jail every year on day girlfriend died for assisting her
suicideIt was later placed on an altar and has been worshipped by villagers,
who have thrown money on it and burned incense nearby for luck
Read More
June 04, 2018
Meteorite fragments found in Yunnan after shower damages village homes
Fragments of meteorites that fell in southwest China’s Yunnan Province on
June 1 have been found in a village of the province’s Menghai County,
Yunnan.cn reported.

A number of residents in Yunnan filmed the meteor shower on June 1 as it lit
up the night sky.

Jiang Wei, executive deputy director of the Professional Committee for
Meteorite Scientific Investigation of the China Scientific Expedition
Association, told reporters from the website that the meteorites fell on
Manlun Village in Mengzhe Town of Menghai County.
Read More
June 04, 2018
Meteors - what you need to know
Are we being invaded by aliens? This was one of many questions asked after
CCTV footage showed what appeared to be a meteor streak across the sky in
North West at the weekend.

TimesLIVE spoke to Professor Roger Gibson from the School of Geosciences at
the University of the Witwatersrand about the incident.

He said the meteor could have been the same one that appeared over China
approximately one hour before reaching South Africa and Botswana.
Read More
May 26, 2018
These Meteorite Hunters Are In Search For "Lottery" In Moroccan Desert
Zagora, Morocco: They roam Morocco's southern desert, braving the searing
heat to scour the undulating sands for bounty fallen from the sky.

These celestial treasure hunters are searching for meteorites to sell on a
burgeoning international market.

The price "depends on the rock's rarity, its shape and its condition", the
59-year old adds, sporting a dark blue tracksuit, lighter blue scarf and
sunglasses.
Read More
May 23, 2018
Asteroid, Meteor, Meteorite and Comet: What's the Difference?
Adding up all of the mass in every asteroid in our entire solar system
totals only less than the mass of our Moon. Despite their small physical
size, however, these space rocks offer important clues as to how our solar
system formed. The terms asteroid, meteor, meteorite, and even comet are
often used interchangeably...but what is the difference?

What is an asteroid?
Asteroids are rocky objects smaller than planets that are left over from the
formation of our solar system. When the cloud of gas and dust collapsed to
form our Sun, much of the remaining material went into forming the rocky
terrestrial and gas giant planets orbiting our star. Smaller dust fragments
that never made their way into planets are left behind as asteroids.
Read More
May 17, 2018
Study: Diamond from the sky may have come from 'lost planet'
BERLIN (AP) - Fragments of a meteorite that fell to Earth about a decade ago
provide compelling evidence of a lost planet that once roamed our solar
system, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers from Switzerland, France and Germany examined diamonds found
inside the Almahata Sitta meteorite and concluded they were most likely
formed by a proto-planet at least 4.55 billion years ago.

The diamonds in the meteorite, which crashed in Sudan's Nubian Desert in
October 2008, have tiny crystals inside them that would have required great
pressure to form, said one of the study's co-authors, Philippe Gillet.
Read More
May 14, 2018
There are 775,000 asteroids, and an Arizona team is tracking them all
FLAGSTAFF — A five-person team of scientists at Lowell Observatory in
Flagstaff helps maintain a giant database of the orbits of all 775,092 known
asteroids in the solar system.

The team, thanks to funding from NASA, now is working to update the database
and beef it up with information about the objects' physical characteristics
such as color, mass, shape, size and rotational period, the Arizona Daily
Sun reported.

Hundreds of thousands of those measurements are stored in other databases or
archives, team member Nick Moskovitz said.
Read More
May 03, 2018
Lunar Meteorite Found in Africa Points to Ice Beneath the Moon’s Surface
Good news, future lunar colonists! Scientists have discovered traces of
moganite in a lunar meteorite that was discovered 13 years ago in Africa.
This mineral requires water to form, so its discovery is being taken as
potential confirmation that frozen water exists beneath the Moon’s dusty
surface.

Though it floats teasingly in the sky above us almost every night, our Moon
remains full of secrets. A lingering lunar mystery is whether our natural
satellite contains any frozen water. This would be good to know for the sake
of scientific knowledge, but also for any future plans to colonize the Moon.
If we’re going to live on the lunar surface for any extended period, we’re
going to need water.
Read More
April 25, 2018
'Holy grail' of guns made: Company sells $4.5M pistols made from
4.5-billion-year-old meteorite
Cabot Guns, a high-end weapons company, is selling the most expensive guns
ever made, a pair of handguns made from a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite,
SWNS reports. The pair is priced at $4.5 million.
Read More
April 18, 2018
Diamonds in a Meteorite May Be a Lost Planet’s Fragments
In 2008, chunks of space rock crashed in the deserts of Sudan. Diamonds
discovered inside one of the recovered meteorites may have come from a
destroyed planet that orbited our sun billions of years ago, scientists said
on Tuesday. If confirmed, they say, it would be the first time anyone has
recovered fragments from one of our solar system’s so-called “lost” planets.

“We have in our hands a piece of a former planet that was spinning around
the sun before the end of the formation of today’s solar system,” said
Philippe Gillet, a planetary scientist at the Federal Institute of
Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland and an author of the paper that was
published in Nature Communications.
Read More
April 18, 2018
Piece of Michigan meteorite doesn't get a single bid at auction
HAMBURG TOWNSHIP, MI - Royal Oak native Ashley Moritz was hoping for a big
payday this week when she put a piece of the Michigan meteorite she found up
for auction. Today, she is disappointed it didn't sell.

The fragment was found in Livingston County's Hamburg Township after a
meteorite exploded over southeastern Michigan on Wednesday, Jan. 17.
Read More
April 10, 2018
Massive Missing Meteorite Impact Crater Hunt Narrows After Glassy Debris
Uncovered In Antarctica
It may come as something of a surprise, but various volcanic eruptions and
meteor impacts are, at present, missing their volcanoes and impact scars.
We’ve found clues to their geological mischief, but so far the suspects
elude identification. One such 800,000-year-old impact is proving
particularly mysterious: All that can be found at present is a gigantic
breadcrumb trail of debris, found predominantly over Australasia.

Now, reporting in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, an
international team of meteorite mavericks have revealed that they’ve found
some more of these vitreous breadcrumbs at the ends of the Earth, in the
Transantarctic Mountains. The crater still eludes them, but the team from
Imperial College London, Vrije University, and the Case Western Reserve
University are narrowing it down with each latest treasure haul, including
this one.
Read More
April 09, 2018
The Meteorite Hunters Who Trade in Precious Space Debris
On January 16th 2018, a bright flash lit up the sky over Michigan,
accompanied by a loud boom. Caught on dash cams and home surveillance
systems, the meteor briefly turned night to day as it streaked to the ground
at almost 36,000 miles per hour, causing a blast wave equivalent to a minor
earthquake.

By the next morning, local people were out searching the frozen winter
landscape for pieces of fallen material. Then the professionals had
arrived—meteorite hunters.
Read More
April 06, 2018
Bits of the Solar System Collected from an Antarctic Glacier
On rare calm days, the most striking thing you notice at an altitude of more
than 8,000 feet on an Antarctic glacier is the silence. “There was just no
sound; no air handling equipment, no leaves rustling, no bugs, no planes or
cars. So quiet you just heard your heartbeat,” said Barbara Cohen, planetary
scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Most
of the time, however, there is a steady howl of bitter cold wind flowing
down from the East Antarctic ice plateau. With a summer temperature hovering
around zero Fahrenheit, “It’s the wind that makes you cold,” Cohen said.
Read More
April 03, 2018
Meteorite hunters of the Gobi
GUIYANG, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Yang Kexin, 28, is obsessed with exploring the
sky.

She calls herself a meteorite hunter and compares her searches for fallen
space debris to searching for a lost kite that has broken free from its
string.

Her hobby began in 2012 when she was making her living selling coal mining
equipment in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "Lots of people there love
looking for rare stones, and I too became enraptured by searching," she
said.

She often went into the desert to look for fallen "stars."
Read More
April 01, 2018
Scientists hunt meteorites in Antarctica with metal-detecting snowmobiles
On the hunt for lost meteorites in Antarctica (which totally sounds like a
mission straight out of Tomb Raider), researchers from the U.K.’s University
of Manchester have turned to innovative metal-detecting technology to help
them.

With that driving mission, they have developed a purpose-built detector unit
which can be towed behind a Ski-Doo snowmobile. This metal-detecting device
is based on tech optimized by University of Manchester researchers for
airport security scanning, landmine removal, recycling, and non-destructive
testing. In this specific case, the researchers hope to use it to discover
iron meteorites which are hidden mere centimeters beneath the surface of the
ice but are nonetheless difficult to discover.
Read More
March 26, 2018
List of meteorites that hit people, houses, and other objects
Courtesy the International Comet Quarterly, here's a list of meteorite
strikes that focuses on situations where the meteorite hit something --
ranging from houses to cars to mailboxes and even a dog. There are a
surprising number of tragic deaths; I can't imagine what the odds are of
being maimed or killed by a meteorite, but it's got to be awfully high.
Read More
March 16, 2018
Meteorite stolen from exhibit at Science Museum of Virginia
A meteorite has been stolen from the space-themed “Speed” exhibit at the
Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, authorities said Friday.

The iron-nickel meteorite, worth $1,500, was taken from the museum in the
2500 block of West Broad Street on Thursday between 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.,
according to a news release from the Virginia Capitol Police.

The space rock had been in the main hall of the museum’s first floor in a
secure, metal display stand. Employees found the stand disassembled and the
rock removed.
Read More
March 11, 2018
University of Alabama searching for family of owner of radio struck by
meteorite
If anyone in Forsyth County knows the family of Eugene H. Hodges, officials
with the University of Alabama are trying to contact them to talk about a
radio struck by a meteorite.

Mary Beth Prondzinski, collections manager with the Alabama Museum of
Natural History on the university’s campus, said the museum is searching for
family members of the late Eugene Hodges, the owner of a radio of struck by
a meteorite in the 1950s that is on display.

“The radio is part of an event that occurred here in Alabama back in 1954,”
she said. “It was actually called the Sylacauga Meteorite Event. It fell in
Sylacauga, Alabama, and it went through somebody’s home and struck the radio
that we currently have on exhibit, which hit the woman who lived in the
house.”
Read More
March 09, 2018
Brilliant Fireball Lights Up the Sky Over Washington
A space rock slammed into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Northwest on
Wednesday night (March 7), putting on a brief but brilliant sky show,
according to media reports.

The fireball and associated boom were caused by an object about the size of
a minivan. It streaked over Washington and eventually fell, in smoldering
bits and broken-up pieces, into the Pacific Ocean about 14 miles (22
kilometers) off the state's coast, NASA meteor expert Marc Fries told
Seattle TV station Q13 Fox.
Read More
March 08, 2018
Bright-Red Meteorite Seen Above Russia's Urals Stuns Viewers (VIDEO)
A third meteorite in a month was seen flying over Yekaterinburg on Tuesday
evening, but according to engineer Vladilin Sanakuyev it might have been a
hoax.

Many locals reported to have witnessed a bright red-yellow luminous body
flying over the Ural Mountains. It was supposedly visible for just 6-7
seconds.
Read More
March 06, 2018
Superconducting materials found in meteorites
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA—Meteorites sometimes contain naturally occurring
superconductors, materials that conduct electricity without any resistance,
a team of physicists has found. The result, reported here today at the
annual March meeting of the American Physical Society, won’t revolutionize
scientists’ understanding of the solar system, but it could raise hopes of
finding a material that is a superconductor a room temperature—which could
potentially lead to technological breakthroughs such as magnetically
levitating trains.
Read More
March 02, 2018
Not every day you find a meteorite in the garden
GIFU--Katsuyuki Mitsumura was working in his garden in October 2012 when he
came across a shiny fragment.

He took the piece into his house because it looked pretty.

Mitsumura, 74, put the "rock" on display in his home but never gave it much
thought until June 2017 when he read a newspaper article about a meteorite
that included a photo.

"I wonder if my piece is also a meteorite," Mitsumura thought at the time.

On March 1, a news conference was held here to announce that his finding had
been certified as a meteorite.
Read More
February 28, 2018
Couple donates meteorite to PIE
Meteorite hunters Tim and Patricia Heitz of Bokeelia donated a 5,800 year
old meteorite to Pine Island Elementary School Thursday morning. The space
rock will be on display in the school's media center.

The meteorite was part of the Campo del Cielo meteorites that fell 5,800
years ago in Argentina and discovered by the Spanish in 1576. The area lies
about 620 miles north of Buenos Aires near the province of Chaco.
Read More
February 24, 2018
Scientists examine potential meteorites at ASU Open House event
TEMPE, AZ - Is that weird rock you found a meteorite from outer space or
just a regular rock found on Earth?

People traveled to Arizona State University's Tempe campus Saturday
afternoon for the ASU Open House to have their discoveries analyzed by
scientists from the Center for Meteorite Studies.

“Usually, I can tell by just looking at it and just say, ‘no, it’s not a
meteorite,” said Laurence Garvie, curator, and professor for the Center for
Meteorite Studies.
Read More
February 20, 2018
Take a look inside Arizona State University's meteorite vault
TEMPE, AZ - They light up the night sky. Filling those who witness them with
jubilation and can fill the pockets of those who find them.

It turns out there's no better place to learn about what makes meteorites so
special than this highly secured vault at Arizona State University.

"This is the largest university-based meteorite collection in the world,"
said Laurence Garvie, Curator for the Center for Meteorite Studies at
Arizona State University. "They represent materials from the beginning of
our solar system, almost everything you see in here is 4.5 billion years
old."

The space rocks of all sizes travel billions of miles through space until
crashing down on our little planet we call Earth.
Read More
February 16, 2018
Prescott's 'Space Cowboy' has the largest meteorite collection in the world
PRESCOTT, AZ
“I saw a big fireball when I was 13 years old from my parents' driveway in
Bullhead City,” said Robert Ward, a planetary science field researcher.

That was all it took for Ward to be hooked on everything about meteorites.

“I’ve been pursuing meteorites for 28 years now and hunted them in every
country except Antarctica,” said Ward. We asked about Ward’s first meteorite
find.

“First collection piece and still in the collection was from Franconia down
by Lake Havasu City,” said Ward.
Read More
February 15, 2018
Arizona Meteorite Fetches Record-Breaking $237,500 at Auction
A rare meteorite that plowed through the Arizona desert nearly 50,000 years
ago sold for a staggering $237,500 during an online auction.

Weighing in at 70 lbs. (32 kilograms), this meteorite is made of iron and
comes from the Barringer Meteorite Crater, also known as Meteor Crater,
located near Winslow, Arizona. The meteorite originated from a small
asteroid roughly 130 feet (40 meters) wide.
Read More
February 14, 2018
Rare 70 pound meteorite sells for record $237,500 at Christie's
An extremely rare 70-pound meteorite sold for a record $237,500 through
Christie's auction house on Wednesday.

This meteorite is referred to as a Canyon Diablo iron meteorite because it
is made of iron and comes from Barringer Crater (also known as Meteor
Crater) in Arizona, a famous site where a meteor crashed into the desert
nearly 50,000 years ago.
Read More
February 14, 2018
McSween Says Some Are Meteorite, But Most Are ‘Meteor Wrong’
The Times Daily reported that a man in Town Creek, Alabama, found a
meteorite in his front yard. Robert Earls said that he’s seen a lot of rocks
and stones in his 81 years, but believed a silicon-looking crystalized rock
to be a meteorite. UT earth and planetary sciences professor Harry McSween
has been studying meteorites for 40 years, and that the odds are against
Earls” object being a meteorite.
Read More
February 13, 2018
Meteorite found by Michigan couple estimated to be worth more than $10000
A piece of the meteor that left southeast Michigan residents awestruck on
January 16 is up for auction as "the most recent stone to fall to Earth."

Christie's estimated the interstellar rock to be worth between $10,000 and
$15,000, James Hyslop, a curator at the auction house, told ABC News in a
statement.

When the meteor hit the atmosphere, it broke into pieces that rained down
between Lansing and Ann Arbor, Michigan, prompting some residents to embark
on a treasure hunt.
Read More
February 06, 2018
‘Meteorite ball of fire’ spotted in night skies
Maggie Dellard went out into the garden of her home in Pines Ridge to look
at the moon after seeing reports of the phenomenon on television - and was
shocked to discover another startling spectacle. “I looked up and there was
this big meteorite flying over Tanbridge School,” she said. “It was a big
ball of fire with a tail behind it.

“I called out to my husband Keith to come and look, but it totally vanished
by the time he came out.”

Maggie, 73, said: “I just can’t believe I am the only person in Horsham to
have seen it. It couldn’t have been anything else but a meteorite.
Read More
February 06, 2018
Hunting meteorites: Prescott man one of the world’s best
It’s no wonder that Prescott resident Robert Ward is so often referred to as
a “space cowboy.”

On a recent afternoon at his home – tucked among the 1.4 billion-year-old
formations of the Granite Dells – Ward looked the part: polished black
leather boots, black cowboy hat, crisp collared shirt, tan cargo jacket and
jeans. And all around him, neatly displayed in well-lit glass cases, were
the meteorites that he has found, bartered for or purchased throughout the
world.

“That’s the oldest single thing known to man,” Ward said, pointing at a
smaller specimen in the collection that he hunted down in California in
2012.

Within that meteorite are small white dots, known as calcium-aluminum-rich
inclusions (CAI).
Read More
February 01, 2018
RPI student fulfills dream of finding meteorite
On the afternoon of Jan. 17, Brandon Weller finished his last class of the
day at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, just as he has done for the past
three years. Instead of sleeping in his bed that Wednesday night, he drove
eight hours to a small town north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was hoping to
fulfill a lifelong dream of his: finding a meteorite.

A large meteor shower the night before scattered meteorites across southeast
Michigan. Weller decided it was the perfect time to try to find one of his
own.

“I had a rock collection growing up, and I just never stopped collecting,”
Weller said. “Meteorites were always kind of on that list.”
Read More
January 28, 2018
Town Creek man believes meteorite landed in his yard
TOWN CREEK — Robert Earls said he’s seen a lot of rocks and stones in his 81
years, but believes a silicon-looking crystallized rock that landed in his
front yard recently is a meteorite.

“You can tell it came from outer space,” said Earls, a retired engineer
technician who worked at Marshall Space Flight Center for nine years. “I’ve
never seen anything like it.”

Earls said he found the rock about 10 feet off Alabama 20 at his home on
Tennessee Street in Town Creek.
Read More
January 23, 2018
Meteorite Hunters Recover Fragments of Fireball That Exploded Over Michigan
Last week, a brilliant fireball lit up the skies over Michigan, exploding
some 20 miles high in a ground-shaking blast. The space rock scattered in
fragments across Hamburg Township, drawing meteorite hunters from all over
in search if the fragments.

A team of professional meteorite hunters from Arizona—Larry Atkins, Robert
Ward and Darryl Landry—found the first fragments of the rock on a Michigan
Lake last Thursday, Elizabeth Howell writes for Space.com. To pinpoint the
locations, the trio used a variety of methods, including seismic data,
Doppler radar and descriptions from witnesses.

“It looked like a perfect black charcoal briquette, with a little snowdrift
on top,” Atkins tells Howell. The fragments the team recovered were all
hand-sized or smaller, weighing between 20 and 100 grams. These are just the
latest finds for the team, who have located hundreds of fragments over the
years, Veronica Meadows reports for NBC 25 News.
Read More
January 22, 2018
Michigan Meteorite Tally Multiplies
They look like leftover gravel from a freshly laid asphalt road, but the
black stones that spattered across the snow in the wake of the January 16th
Michigan fireball were anything but terrestrial. They belonged to a tiny
asteroid on a recent foray to the outer asteroid belt but now grounded for
good on Earth.

Meteorite hunters swarmed to the strewn field near the Township of Hamburg
in southwestern Michigan with heads down, walking frozen lakes, parks, and
streets in the fall’s strewn field hoping to find a piece of interplanetary
treasure. A few have had success, others have returned home with sore legs
but grateful to join in the hunt.
Read More
January 18, 2018
Hunt on for spec of space rock that shook Michigan
NASA officials confirmed its meteor camera spotted the material at about
8:08 p.m. at Oberlin College in Ohio. The image shows a tiny white ball
traversing the screen until a bright flash is seen when it appears to make
impact. NASA

Finding remnants of the meteor that flew over southeast Michigan on Tuesday
is really shooting for the stars, experts say.

First, you’ve got to find a piece. Then you’ll need a studied eye to detect
the difference between space rock and plain old pieces of Earth, they say.
Read More
January 17, 2018
NASA: Meteorites 'likely' on ground in southeast Michigan
A suspected meteor reverberated across the metro Detroit area at about 8:15
p.m. Jan. 16, 2018, sending social media into a frenzy. Local meteorologists
confirm it wasn't thunder or lightning, but likely a meteor. Wochit

Pieces of a meteor that ripped through the sky Tuesday night are "likely" on
the ground in southeast Michigan, according to a verified NASA Facebook
page.

People from metro Detroit to neighboring states saw and heard the thunderous
fireball at roughly 8:15 p.m. that streaked through an area northwest of
Detroit, above Brighton and Howell, according to the NASA Meteor Watch
Facebook page.
Read More
January 12, 2018
Mystery solved? Iron meteorite throne in PYRAMID was made to take Pharaoh to
the stars
After translating ancient texts, researchers believe an “iron throne” made
of meteorites may sit within the giant chamber which was uncovered using
revolutionary scanning technology.

The Polytechnic University of Milan’s Giulio Magli said: “There is a
possible interpretation, which is in good agreement with what we know about
the Egyptian funerary religion as witnessed in the Pyramids Texts.

“In these texts it is said that the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of
the north, will have to pass the 'gates of the sky' and sit on his 'throne
of iron’.”
Read More
January 10, 2018
Alien Meteorite Found in the Sahara Is Older Than Our Solar System
2017 was a year of excitement among the asteroid-watching community, as
'Oumuamua, the first recorded visitor from an another solar system, took a
spin around our sun before launching itself off into the inky blackness of
space.

According to a team at the University of Johannesburg, though, 'Oumuamua is
far from the first visitor from another solar system that we have available
to study. One such alien rock is right here on Earth, making it far easier
to study.

The anomalous rock widely called the Hypatia stone was discovered in 1996 in
a remote part of the Sahara desert, surrounded by strange yellow glass that
defied explanation. For two decades, scientists have endeavored to discover
the rock's origins, and find out exactly how it was formed, and how it
arrived in the middle of the desert.
Read More
January 08, 2018
Yes, We Can Survive A Deadly Asteroid Impact Just As Our Early Ancestors Did
There is new evidence that our early ancestors survived a kilometer-sized
asteroid impact in Southeast Asia. The asteroid, which hit Earth around
800,000 years ago, was powerful enough to launch debris and dust across
Earth's surface.

This asteroid impact is the most recent of this magnitude and provides a
glimpse into the ability of early human ancestors to withstand an extinction
level impact. While the exact location of the impact crater has not been
found, scientists are honing in on the location through careful examination
of telltale fragments from an asteroid impact.
Read More
January 01, 2018
Stargazers stunned by New Year's Eve meteor - see their videos and pictures
Hundreds of you spotted the ‘ New Year’s Eve meteor ’, which streaked across
the skies of the North East as 2017 drew to a close.

The bright green and gold burst of light appeared at around 5.30pm on
Sunday.

It’s thought to have been a meteorite of some kind, with the International
Meteor Organization recording 602 reports of a ‘very bright fireball’
sighted across the North of England and parts of Scotland.
Read More
December 27, 2017
Meteor captured on dashcam video lights up Northeast sky; seen in
Pennsylvania
A police sergeant looking for speeders captured a fireball streaking across
the sky on his dashboard camera early Tuesday.

The bright flash visible from several states was apparently left by a meteor
burning up as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere. Other people and webcams
also captured images of the fireball.
Read More
December 19, 2017
Amazing alien mineral discovery: Site of 60 million-year-old meteorite
strike stuns scientists
Scientists have discovered ‘alien’ minerals at the site of a prehistoric
meteor strike on Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye.

Geologists from Birkbeck, University of London, were part of a team
examining volcanic rocks on Skye when they spotted mineral forms from a
meteor impact that have never been found on Earth before.
Read More
December 15, 2017
Alien Minerals Discovered at Ancient Meteorite Strike Site in Scotland
Geologists have uncovered mineral forms never before seen on Earth at the
site of a 60 million-year-old meteorite strike on the Isle of Skye in
Scotland.

When probing a thick layer of ancient lava flow on the small, picturesque
island, Simon Drake and colleague Andy Beard from Birbeck, University of
London, were surprised to find a bizarre-looking rock.
Read more
December 12, 2017
UFOs SAVED Earth from DEVASTATING meteor strike, claim conspiracy theorists
A DEVASTATING meteor which hit Russia was intercepted by a UFO to save the
world from an even bigger disaster, conspiracy theorists have claimed.
Read More
December 11, 2017
Scientists finally know why meteors explode just before hitting Earth
Mankind hasn’t had to deal with much in the way of deadly meteors over the
years, but on the few occasions when one of the pesky space rocks does
target Earth, they often self-destruct in the air before it even reaches the
ground. For years, researchers have puzzled over why that happens, but a new
study published in the Meteoritics & Planetary Science suggests the first
concrete explanation.

Using a recent meteor explosion event — the rock that detonated in the sky
above Chelyabinsk, Russia — as an example, scientists attempted to explain
why the massive object seemed to cut its life short before striking ground.
Using computer simulations to model the incoming path of the large meteor,
the data revealed that it wasn’t necessarily the friction of the upper
atmosphere the caused the explosion, but rather the pressure difference
between the air in front of the rock and the air behind it.
Read More
December 07, 2017
Police Dashcam Captures Fireball Streaking Across New Jersey Sky
HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) — On December 2 around 3 a.m., Sergeant
Michael Virga with the Hamilton Township Police Department was working the
overnight shift.

At 3:09 a.m., he turned down Drosera Avenue. Virga pulled over and activated
his dashcam.

“These tapes they record backwards. They’re consistently running so they
overwrite themselves if we don’t activate it. Once I realized what I saw, I
went back and was able to catch the whole thing,” he said.
Read More
December 05, 2017
Archaeologists discover ancient tools that actually came from space
We may still be looking for proof that aliens exist, but new research into
some very curious ancient tools now reveals that humans were using
extraterrestrial material long before mankind even dreamed of flying out of
Earth’s atmosphere. The findings, which were published in the Journal of
Archaeological Science, reveal that some incredibly old iron artifacts date
to a time well before humans had the technological wit to smelt iron ore,
and as it turns out, the iron used in their construction actually fell from
the sky.

Archaeologists have long suspected that the iron occasionally found amongst
Bronze Age artifacts had otherworldly origins, but actually testing those
weapons and tools proved more challenging than you might imagine.
Preservation is key when it comes to objects that have been lying in wait
for thousands of years to be discovered, so many types of testing simply
can’t be done for fear of damage. The researchers found a way around that,
and made a fantastic discovery.
Read More
December 04, 2017
Bronze Age Elite Forged All Their Best Weapons and Jewelry From Meteorites
How could people living during the Bronze Age pull off the difficult process
of making iron? They didn't, concludes a new study, instead they got the
iron for the rare, few iron artifacts discovered from the period in an
easy-to-use form: meteorites hitting Earth.

The logic behind names of prehistoric periods is breathtakingly
straightforward: During the Bronze Age, archaeologists find lots of
artifacts made of bronze, but then, when the Iron Age begins, suddenly metal
implements are made of iron instead. But there have always been a few
exceptions, rare objects made of iron long before the Bronze Age faded.
Archaeologists have been stumped by these objects because iron is much more
difficult to process than bronze, and they didn't think any Bronze Age
civilizations had the skills needed to do so.
Read More
November 27, 2017
Mystery of fireball hurtling across Canadian night sky finally solved
Some thought it was a meteorite, and others a UFO, but we now know that a
fireball spotted over Canada on Friday night was neither. US Strategic
Command confirmed it was, in fact, the body of the Antares rocket burning as
it returned to Earth’s atmosphere.

The ball of fire was spotted by a number of Canadians in Alberta and
Saskatchewan who shared videos of the mysterious flames. The military
released a statement revealing the truth.
Read More
November 22, 2017
NASA accused of UFO COVER-UP as meteorite hurtles into solar system
The European Space Agency (ESA) released a video showing the object entering
Earth’s atmosphere.

In it, a bright light is seen flashing in the distance from the
International Space Station.

He said: “I don’t think it’s a meteorite at all. What many people may not
realise if that this video is a time lapse.
Read More
November 18, 2017
Experts in Finland scramble to calculate path of blazing Arctic meteorite
that may have landed somewhere in the country
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Finnish experts are scrambling to calculate the
trajectory of a blazing fireball that lit up the dark skies of Arctic
Finland for five seconds in an attempt to find the celestial body.

Tomas Kohout of the University of Helsinki's physics department says
Thursday night's fireball — allegedly a meteorite — "seems to have been one
of the brightest ones."

Kohout says the alleged meteorite produced a blast wave that felt like an
explosion about 6:40 p.m. and could be seen in northern Norway and in
Russia's Kola peninsula.
Read More
November 15, 2017
‘Meteorite’ discovered at Claremont’s Freshwater Bay Primary School
It sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie.

A meteorite rains down on a Perth primary school just ahead of the busy
morning school run.

But, before you expect to see Ridley Scott at Claremont’s Freshwater Bay
Primary School, there are a few things to consider.

Firstly, the bricks around said “meteorite” appear to have stayed remarkably
intact despite the rock plummeting from space.

Secondly, WA Police were oblivious to the “discovery” when called by The
West Australian this morning (despite the use of police tape around the
scene).
Read More
November 13, 2017
Castle Gardens Primary School 'hit by meteorite'
A County Down school has staged a meteorite strike in its playground.

The fake strike, intended to teach children about space, was discovered by
pupils at Castle Gardens Primary School in Newtownards on Monday morning.

Staff, parents and a local business spent the weekend setting the scene.

The school's principal, John Gray, said it would also help pupils who sat
their first transfer test paper on Saturday to think about something else.
Read More
November 10, 2017
University of Calgary team locates Labour Day fireball fall zone
Researchers from the University of Calgary and international colleagues have
discovered the meteorite remnants from a fireball bright enough to be seen
from space, and by witnesses across Western Canada and the northwestern
United States.

An asteroid fragment measuring one metre wide and weighing one to five
tonnes entered Earth’s atmosphere on the evening of Sept. 4, 2017 and lit up
the sky. The bright streak alarmed and confused many witnesses, sending some
emergency response teams scrambling.
Read More
November 09, 2017
Got your hands on a meteorite? Here's how to know for sure!
Thursday, November 9, 2017, 1:04 PM - A blaze of light flashes through the
darkness, flaring so brightly that, for just a few moments, night becomes
like day. Finding the object behind this brilliant display may reveal
answers to mysteries about the birth of our solar system, or could provide
us with even deeper questions to be answered. Here's your guide to
meteorites and everything you need to know to find them.

Quick Facts:
• A rock in space is a meteoroid, which produces a meteor flash of light in
the atmosphere, and becomes a meteorite if it hits the ground
• An asteroid is rock in space, typically larger than a metre in size, which
produces a bright fireball and/or explosive bolide meteor
• It is estimated that as much as 300 metric tons of meteorites plunge into
Earth's atmosphere on any particular day
• There are three basic kinds of meteorites - iron, stony and stony-iron
• Most meteorites contain some of the earliest minerals to form in our solar
system, over 4.5 billion years ago
• Some meteorites are even from other planets and the Moon
• So far, no rock brought in to the Royal Ontario Museum for identification
has turned out to be a meteorite, but will yours be the first?
Read More
November 06, 2017
Archaeological Dig Uncovers Homestead Of Chatham's Earliest Settlers
An archaeological dig in North Chatham recently uncovered the original
homestead of two of Chatham’s earliest residents, William and Anne Busby
Nickerson. They built their house on a site near Ryder’s Cove in 1664, but
the site was never preserved, and gradually was reclaimed by the surrounding
land.

About 20 years ago, the Nickerson Family Association established its
headquarters near where they believed William and Anne’s homestead had
stood. They undertook the recent archaeological dig to try and pinpoint the
exact location.
Read More
November 06, 2017
Dazzling Geminid meteor shower to light up the holiday season: How, when to
watch
The holiday season is about to get a lot brighter this year with the famous
Geminid meteor shower sparkling the night sky.

If you plan to catch a ride aboard the train at Macy’s Pink Pig in Atlanta —
a local holiday tradition — or attend one of the most spirited holiday
parades in the country, you may also want to squeeze in some time for this
celestial spectacle in December.

Here’s what you need to know about the 2017 Geminid meteor shower:
Read More
November 03, 2017
Hunt for meteorites in your own yard
When you picture a meteorite, you probably imagine a massive hunk of space
rock hurtling its way through Earth’s atmosphere. The objects that survive
this trip sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auctions, become parts of
museum displays, and make national news. But you—yes, you—can find your very
own meteorites, and you don’t need to be a millionaire to do it. You just
need to think small. Micro, to be exact.

Like meteorites, micrometeorites are space rocks that fall to Earth—but as
their name suggests, they are also extremely tiny, less than a tenth of an
inch in width. And they’re way more numerous than their big cousins:
Approximately 3,000 tons—that's roughly the weight of 47 sperm whales—of
micrometeorites smash into the ground each year, compared to a piddling 55
tons of meteorites. Which means some of these objects could be sitting in
your backyard right now.
Read More
October 28, 2017
Has a meteorite ever been found in Newfoundland? One man says he's collected
16
A retired science teacher in central Newfoundland says he believes he is the
owner of several meteorites, despite claims that a rock from outer space has
never been found on the island.

When a bright light shot across the sky over St. John's Monday night, it
sent a few people scouring the Southside Hills on Tuesday looking for traces
of meteorite. A meteorite is a piece of rock that survives its passage
through the Earth's atmosphere and makes it to land.
Read More
October 25, 2017
Meteorite slams into Cape businessman's roof
Cape Town - He heard a loud thump and thought it was an intruder trying to
steal from his furniture shop. Never in his wildest dreams did he think the
“intruder” was from a galaxy far away.

Fagrie Allie, who owns a furniture store in Paarl, was closing his shop when
“I heard a loud thump along with a shattering sound and at first I thought
It was an intruder but I saw the store was empty and I thought maybe one of
the pieces of furniture had fallen over but I saw nothing”.

He then saw dust particles coming from the ceiling but didn’t take note at
first.
Read More
October 20, 2017
Meteor shower to light up the sky
A meteor shower is expected to light up the night sky on Friday and Saturday
night. The annual Orionid Meteor Shower is predicted to display between 10
and 20 meteors per hour.

According to Jacaranda FM, Elias Aydi, a Ph.D. student affiliated with the
South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and the University of Cape
Town (UCT), explained that a multinational group of astronomers recently
discovered what might be the brightest stellar eruption ever observed.

Aydi explains a meteor is a large rock passing through the atmosphere of the
earth. It burns and evaporates and then leaves behind a trail of gasses due
to high speeds.
Read More
October 20, 2017
In Search of the Mid-Autumn Meteorite
YUNNAN, Southwest China — As a white light illuminated the night sky on Oct.
4, the windows in Deqen County started to shake. Liu Jiewen, who had moved
from Shanghai to the remote area on the Tibetan Plateau around six years
ago, was drinking with friends who said they clearly felt vibrations. But
Liu — an amateur travelogue writer who makes a living selling mountain
delicacies at his shop — said he hadn’t been paying attention.

Almost immediately, Liu’s younger brother called him from the nearby town of
Benzilan, right next to the Yunnan-Tibet Highway in northwestern Yunnan
province. “There was a big oval moon flying across the sky, shining as
bright as day,” Liu’s brother said. “It exploded and crashed into the
mountain outside the town.” After hanging up the phone, Liu told his
friends: “No need to make a fuss; it’s probably just some family setting off
fireworks for the Mid-Autumn Festival.”
Read More
October 18, 2017
Another Flying Saucer? Mysterious Object Over UAE Stuns Onlookers
An unknown space object has been observed disintegrating into flames over
Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Discussing a video of the strange event, some commentators suggested that it
could be a meteorite, while others thought it could have been a burning
plane.

The UAE's Thenational.ae news website quoted the Dubai Astronomy Group as
saying that the mysterious object was debris from Russia's Progress cargo
spaceship "disintegrating in the atmosphere."
Read More
October 17, 2017
Meteor Crater: Arizona's other huge hole in the ground
Arizona is best known for its giant hole in the ground, a feature that
became the state's license-plate slogan and has etched itself into the
hearts of tourists around the world.

But Grand Canyon isn’t the state’s only hole in the ground that attracts
hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

Meteor Crater is a geological warm-up act to the Canyon, an interesting
diversion worth visiting for an hour or so (more if you browse the gift shop
or have lunch at the sandwich shop).
Read More
October 11, 2017
Asteroid to just miss Earth
Asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass mighty close by our planet this Thursday. A
direct hit would cause untold destruction. So, are we really prepared for
such an event?

A digital clock showing the last seconds before impact, a manned space craft
whose mission is to stop a massive asteroid and a hero who is going to save
Earth from certain destruction – the stuff movies like Armageddon are made
of. But could this become reality? Not really!

The reason is not that Hollywood calls up the most obscure weapons
technologies, but simply that nobody has a ready-made plan what to do in
such a scenario. Which methods should one use? Would there be a space
mission? Who would take responsibility for it? Would we use rockets to shoot
at the asteroid? And finally: who would pay for it all? Lots of unanswered
questions.
Read More
October 09, 2017
Man videos ‘meteorite strike’ as Cairns big bang theories abound
THE city’s “big bang” mystery continues to deepen with residents split on
whether it was caused by a meteorite, gas bottle explosion, electrical
transformer failure or sonic boom.

Beginning with the latter theory, a single FA-18 Hornet was heard flying
loudly over Cairns on Sunday night, with a Department of Defence spokesman
confirming it landed at Cairns Airport while carrying out a training
exercise from RAAF Base Townsville.

But no jets were operating late on Saturday night when a god-almighty
“explosion” was heard across the city.
Read More
October 06, 2017
Watch: Huge Celestial Fireball Appears in Night Sky as Superboldie Meteorite
Explodes Over China
A huge fireball lit up the sky over southwestern China Wednesday when a
meteoroid entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burst into flames.

NASA data put the velocity of the fireball at 14.6 kilometers per second,
generating impact energy equivalent to 540 tons of TNT as it blazed across
the night sky near the border with Myanmar.

The cosmic light show was visible for several seconds, just after 8pm local
time on Wednesday, the South China Morning Post reported. Videos posted on
Chinese social media captured the extraordinary sight, seen here in this
video by Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.
Read More
October 06, 2017
Couple’s home hit by meteorite, Clemson astrophysicists confirm
CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson astrophysicists have visually confirmed that an
unusual rock that hit a Pawley Island home and ended up in a yard is
meteorite from outer space.

“I looked at my house and my windows, and everything looked fine, so I just
walked right on by,” Casselman said. “I didn’t even pick it up.”

The next day, Casselman’s partner, Dennis Suszko, found a strange piece of
rock in the front yard, and she remembered seeing a similar rock in the side
yard.
Read More
September 06, 2017
The Meteorite Hunters of British Columbia Are Out in Full Force
They’re looking for remnants of the fireball that burned up over their
province this past weekend.

When a meteor passes overhead, two exciting things happen. The first is the
fireball that streaks across the sky, seemingly out of nowhere. The second,
provided there’s no damage, is the aftermath: when enthusiasts roam around,
seeking treasure in the form of tiny space rocks.
Read More
September 05, 2017
Space rock that caused flash over West could have weighed 10 tonnes: expert
At least one expert believes a bright flash that lit up the sky over parts
of Western Canada on Monday night was likely caused by a space rock that
weighed up to 10 tonnes when it barrelled into the Earth's atmosphere.

There were reports of a mysterious fireball streaking across the sky in
several locations, including Calgary, the Okanagan Valley and Kootenays in
the B.C. Interior and the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island.
Read More
August 23, 2017
The Molong meteorite and why a century on, mystery surrounds a small town's
biggest find
A 105-year-old mystery surrounding the rare Molong meteorite from
central-west New South Wales has been dug up again.

Molong, west of Orange, lays claim to a few things — being the birthplace of
the Packham pear and the location of the infamous Fairbridge Farm School for
British child migrants — but its place in the geological and astronomical
history books is less known.

When a 105-kilogram meteorite was discovered in a Molong farmer's paddock in
1912, it caused a local stir.

But more than a century on, many questions remain, and there are hopes
pieces of the puzzle could be put in place.
Read More
August 11, 2017
Man claims to have found a burning meteorite in yard, but is it real?; video
A man in Georgia claims to have found a burning meteorite in a small impact
crater in his yard and captured video footage of his discovery moments after
impact on July 21.

But is it real? "It was so loud that I thought there had been a car accident
on the road in front of my house," Jay Sullivent of Appling told Caters News
via Daily Mail. "When I got over to the crater it was around 15 inches deep
and about the same across. The rock in the middle was glowing red."
Read More
August 07, 2017
Virginia witness says UFO hovered over neighbor’s home.
A Virginia witness at Richmond reported watching and videotaping a
cylinder-shaped object hovering over a neighbor’s home, according to
testimony in Case 84480 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness
reporting database.

The witness and her husband were sitting outside on a porch at 10:45 p.m. on
June 17, 2017, when the incident began.

“I noticed what looked like a meteorite shooting across the sky at three
separate times a few minutes apart from one another,” the witness stated. “I
thought it was odd for this to happen back-to-back because I’ve never seen
that before, but I ignored the thought and continued to talk with my
husband.”
Read More
August 01, 2017
The Earth Had A Near-Miss With An Asteroid That Was Completely Undetected
An asteroid the size of a passenger aircraft has been detected after passing
extremely close to Earth.

What’s worrying about that sentence is the word ‘after’. It was completely
undetected until three days after it had been at its closest point to our
planet.
Read More
July 21, 2017
Someone Just Bought That $20,000 KFC Zinger Meteorite
When KFC debuted its new online lifestyle goods boutique earlier this month,
who knew that one of the first things to sell would be the $20,000 meteorite
shaped like a Zinger chicken sandwich?

The fast feeder just placed a "Sold" label on the item, created by Wieden &
Kennedy Portland to memorialize the menu offering's recent flight into
space. See how it was packaged for delivery above.
Read More
July 18, 2017
The value of hunting meterorites
Meteorites are scattered all over the surface of our planet, but they're
rarely found. For one, there's a needle-in-a-haystack quality endemic to
hunting for meteorites, and most people don't really know what they're
looking for. Knowing that meteorites are much, much older than any other
rock on Earth doesn't necessarily make them easier to find. The reward for
discovering a rock that's billions of years old can be great indeed, and not
just from a scientific or academic perspective. Because of their age,
importance and rarity, meteorites can be worth a lot of money.
Read More
July 12, 2017
KFC carved a meteorite into the shape of a sandwich, and you can buy it for
$20000
Read More
July 08, 2017
NASA Warns Earth Could Be Next After Meteorite Impact Sparked Massive
Explosion On The Moon
After NASA filmed the moment that a meteorite impact triggered a massive
explosion on the surface of the moon, scientists warned that the Earth could
be next if we do not develop the technology to ward off the threat of
meteoroids and asteroids threatening the planet. And as part of efforts to
protect the Earth from a catastrophic impact event, NASA launched the Double
Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) to build a spacecraft that can be launched
to bounce off an asteroid threatening the Earth.

The 880-pound meteor, which collided with the lunar surface on September 11,
2013, at a speed of 37, 900 mph, was filmed by NASA scientists. Experts
warned after the event that the incident highlighted the grave danger the
Earth faces from meteoroids and asteroids orbiting near and crossing the
path of its orbit. According to scientists, it is only a matter of time
before the Earth experiences a major impact event that could wipe out human
civilization if we fail to develop the technology to ward off the threat.
Read More
July 01, 2017NASA announces plan to re-direct asteroid coming near
Earth.
Read More
June 27, 2017
A Rare, 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Hit the Netherlands
Meteorites in the Netherlands, like in a lot of places throughout the world,
can be very hard to find. That’s because they’re small and hard to
distinguish from other rocks and can land anywhere. We frequently don’t even
know they exist unless they make us notice, like when they hit someone’s car
or someone’s hip.

Which is what happened in January in the Netherlands, when a one-pound
meteorite hit a shed and was discovered by residents who were picking
through the damage, according to Agence France-Presse. The meteorite is only
the sixth found in the country in the last 200 years, which means it was
cause for celebration by scientists there, some of whom released a video
Sunday to unveil the rock and explain how excited they were.
Read More
June 26, 2017
Meteorite ‘size of a small car’ causes buzz after hitting Sudan
The Sudanese Ministry of Minerals announced on Sunday that they found
fragments of a meteorite, which had struck earth on Wednesday in the
southern White Nile state.

Head of the geological team Othman Abu Aqla said that the team received the
fragments of the stone and tests found radioactive elements in the field in
which the meteorite fragments fell.

He added that when they measured the radioactivity of the collected samples
of the meteorites they turned out to be at normal levels.
Read More
June 18, 2017
Broadneck residents: You might want to check for meteorites
It came in the night with a flash of light — and it may have fallen in your
backyard.

American Meteor Society Operations Manager Mike Hankey, of Monkton, said on
June 6 around 9:55 p.m. more than 50 witnesses in Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Washington, D.C., and Maryland reported seeing a bright light in the sky. It
was a meteor, and it ended its path over the Broadneck Peninsula, according
to Hankey.

Eastport resident Julie Lenzer said she saw it while driving home from
Washington along Route 50. It looked like a star, but bigger, and fizzled
out, she said.

Most meteorites blow up miles above the Earth's surface, Hankey said,
turning into hundreds or thousands of smaller rocks, which are then
scattered over an area a mile wide and 10 miles long.
Read More
June 15, 2017
Krugersdorpers spot meteorite slicing through the sky
Krugersdorpers went nuts about the meteorite that fell to earth near
Krugersdorp North this morning, 15 June at about 6am.

Kaylem Cronje said in a Facebook post that he was on his way to work when
the meteorite fell into the atmosphere.

Corné Breydenbach asked his friends if it was indeed a meteor.

He joked, saying that he initially thought it was a petrol bomb because he
knew about the taxi strikes taking place in Midrand.

Yolandé de Koker was on the N14 heading in the direction of Centurion when
the meteor appeared.
Read More
June 13, 2017
Out of this world: Pottsville store sells meteorites
POTTSVILLE — A store owner in Pottsville has meteorites he says are from
Mars.

...Seymchan is a Pallasite meteorite found in the dry bed of the Hekandue
River in the Magadan District, Russia, near the settlement of Seymchan in
June 1967 ...

Pallasites consist of a nickel-iron matrix packed with Olivine crystals and
account for less than 2% of all known meteorites ... and unlike many
meteorites, Seymchan is stable and rust resistant!
Read More
June 06, 2017
Rock-like object falls from sky in Jaipur, appears to be meteorite
A mysterious rock-like object, which appears to have fallen from the sky, in
an open field near Bhankhrora area on the outskirts of the city caused panic
among locals.

The dark grey-coloured object appears to be a meteorite and weighs around
four kg. A few other pieces of the rock-like object were also found, police
said.

“Locals spotted the object in the morning and informed us. It seems the
object fell at a great speed as it has created a small crater on the ground
in Mukundpura village,” SHO of Bhankhrora Police Station Hemendra Sharma
told PTI.
Read More
June 02, 2017
Remember last year's meteorite? Here's where to see it!
TEMPE, AZ - The sound and the light from the fireball startled many
Arizonans one year ago, but now they can see the meteorites that caused it.

The meteor fell from space on June 2, 2016.

"This meteor, which was probably the size of a small car came into the
atmosphere at about 15 miles per second, broke up in the upper atmosphere
into thousands of pieces," ASU Professor Laurence Garvie said.

Garvie is the curator for ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies.

"I'd like to say a once in a generation event to have something so close to
us," Garvie said. He was part of the meteorite search team in Eastern
Arizona.
Read More
May 26, 2017
'Tiny clocks' crystallize understanding of meteorite crashes
Almost two billion years ago, a 10-kilometre-wide chunk of space slammed
down into rock near what is now the city of Sudbury. Now, scientists from
Western University and the University of Portsmouth are marrying details of
that meteorite impact with technology that measures surrounding crystal
fragments as a way to date other ancient meteorite strikes.

The pioneering technique is helping add context and insight into the age of
meteor impacts. And ultimately, it provides new clues into the beginnings of
life on this planet and others, said Desmond (Des) Moser, associate
professor in the Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography at Western.

"The underlying theme is, when did life begin? We know that it couldn't
happen as long as the surface was being periodically vaporized by meteorite
strikes during the solar system's early years and youth—so if we can figure
out when those strikes stopped, we can then understand a bit more about how
we got here, and when."
Read More
May 19, 2017
Piece of the Meteorite That Struck a Woman Sells for More Than Its Weight in
Gold
At 2:46 P.M. on November 30, 1954, 34-year-old Ann Hodges of Sylacauga,
Alabama, was napping on her couch. Suddenly a nine-pound object bashed
through the ceiling of her home, smashed into her radio, ricocheted off and
hit her in the thigh, reports Kat Eschner at Smithsonian.com. The object was
a meteorite and it left a nasty bruise in the only well-documented case of a
person being struck by a rock from space. A piece of that meteorite sold
last week at auction at Christie’s fetching more money per gram than gold.

As Daryl Pitt, a meteorite consultant for the auction house, tells Rae
Paoletta at Gizmodo, the 10.3-gram specimen of meteorite sold for $7,500.
“By way of example, the price of 24K gold today is $39.05/g,” Pitt says,
“and so this specimen sold for 18.5 times its weight in gold.”

The rock sold at auction wasn't actually a fraction of the meteorite that
bombarded into Hodges' home. Though Hodges herself recovered a section, a
local farmer also found a chunk. The Smithsonian acquired the section of the
space rock from the farmer soon after. The piece that sold at Christie’s
comes from his chunk of the rock, but is a much smaller fraction than the
one still remaining with museum collections. As Nina Godlewski of the
International Business Times reports, the piece sold is only about the size
of a dime.
Read More
May 18, 2017
Experts analyse unique meteorite falling in east Bohemia
Hradec Kralove, East Bohemia, May 17 (CTK) - A unique meteorite from east
Bohemia, one of few whose trajectory is exactly known, has been analysed by
experts, Pavel Suchan, from the Science Academy's Astronomical Institute,
told CTK on the first anniversary of the meteorite's fall on Wednesday.

The meteorite is only the fifth in the Czech Republic and 30th in the world
whose previous route through the Solar System and the Earth's atmosphere has
been successfully measured by astronomical devices.

It weighs 134 grammes and bears the name of Hradec Kralove, after the
capital of the region where it fell and was found by a meteorite hunter.
Read More
May 15, 2017
Beads made from meteorite reveal prehistoric culture's reach
Blackened and irregular, the prehistoric beads found in a centuries-old
Illinois grave don’t look like anything special. But the latest analysis1
shows that they were fashioned from an exotic material: the shards of a
meteorite that fell to Earth more than 700 kilometres from where the beads
were found.

The link between the Anoka meteorite, which landed in central Minnesota, and
the Illinois beads confirms that “2,000 years ago, goods and ideas were
moved hundreds of miles across eastern North America”, says Timothy McCoy,
co-author of the analysis and curator-in-charge of meteorites at the
National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.
Read More
2nd Article
May 10, 2017
A Piece of the Famous Meteorite That Nailed a Person Has Just Been Sold
The only thing worse than getting struck by lightning or a large, flying
bird is getting struck by a meteorite. Thankfully, the chances of this
happening to you are incredibly low—according to National Geographic, there
is only one confirmed case of a meteorite striking a person. So perhaps it’s
no surprise that a piece of the offending space rock, called “Sylacauga”
after the town it landed in, just sold today for one hell of a price tag.

According to Christie’s, the auction house obtained a portion of the famous
falling rock from the Smithsonian, as part of an online auction featuring an
array of meteorites, including some estimated to be about 4.5 billion years
old. The rock has been stowed away since it struck a woman on the hip after
blasting through the roof of her home on November 30, 1954 in Talladega
County, Alabama.
Read More
May 05, 2017
Crater Potentially Linked to the Biggest Mass Extinction Event in Earth’s
History is Discovered
Scientists have discovered what they believe is one of the biggest impact
craters in the world near the Falklands Islands. They say the crater appears
to date to between 270 and 250 million years ago, which, if confirmed, would
link it to the world’s biggest mass extinction event, where 96 percent of
life on Earth was wiped out.

The presence of a massive crater in the Falklands was first proposed by
Michael Rampino, a professor in New York University, in 1992 after he
noticed similarities with the Chicxulub crater in Mexico—the asteroid that
created this crater is thought to have played a major role in the extinction
of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
Read More
May 03, 2017
Christie's to auction 4.6-billion-year-old meteorite 'a third as old as time
itself'
It's a strange feeling, holding a piece of Mars in your hand. But that's
what I'm doing at the offices of Christie's auction house in New York.

Laid out in front of me are a series of rare meteorites, part of "Deep
Impact: Martian, Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites," Christie's annual online
auction of extraterrestrial specimens. Deep Impact, which will be live from
May 3 to 10, with lot estimates ranging from $1,000 to $120,000.

Here, some are large, some small; some from the moon, a couple from Mars.
One is the shape of a pear and fits in the palm of my hand. Another, the
size of a small window, is presented sliced, exposing sparkling crystals of
peridot and olivine.
Read More
April 26, 2017
“Meteorite hunter” finds 14 kg of meteorite-like substance in Iran desert
Russian Federation – In January 2017 a team of four UrFU researchers spent
10 days in the Lut desert in Iran on a meteorite expedition. Every day the
expedition would cover 50-100 kilometres. They managed to find 12-14
kilograms of samples, which have characteristics similar to meteorites.

According to the head of the expedition, part of the samples was left in
UrFU’s partner university in Iran – Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman –
for further studies. The part which was brought to Ekaterinburg is being
studied in the university’s Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies research
centre.

The team conducted visual studies and checked the magnetic properties of the
obtained fragments having found out that 90% of the findings are meteorites.
The largest found meteorite weighes 10 kilograms, though it is divided in
several fragments. The biggest meteorite brought to UrFU weights 2
kilograms.

The substance discovered is thought to date back up to 4.5 billion years
ago; still further tests and examination are needed to confirm this
hypothesis. Professor Grokhovsky commented: “In order to determine the age
of the found fragments, the scientist should consider when a fragment was
formed in space, when it split from its parent body and how much time has it
spent on Earth.”
Read More
April 17, 2017
Meteor causes house-shaking thud
THERE have been reports of a house-shaking thud in Killarney after the
meteor was spotted in our skies last night.

Our sister paper, the Warwick Daily News reported the buzz on social media:
Brigitte Jones said, "I felt it out here, the house shook."

Madeline Wilkins posted "I'm in Toowoomba and saw a burning light in the sky
maybe a meteorite, heading that direction just before I saw this post...
Maybe related?"

Some residents reported thinking the noise was thunder or fireworks.
Read More
April 13, 2017
An expert’s guide to meteorites
Meteorites are our principal source of extraterrestrial material. They are
sometimes called the ‘poor man’s space probe’ because they land on Earth for
free. These rocks hail from approximately 100–150 different asteroids as
well as from the Moon and Mars, and they provide key information about our
origins. Asteroidal meteorites are also the oldest rocks around – a few
hundred million years older than the oldest existing Earth rocks and
approximately 60 million years older than the Moon itself.

There are three main varieties of meteorites:

Stones (95 per cent of meteorite falls): These are silicate rocks (some
resembling terrestrial volcanic rocks) derived from melted and unmelted
asteroids, the Moon, and Mars

Irons (4 per cent of falls): These are metallic iron-nickel masses,
predominantly from the cores of melted asteroids.

Stony irons (1 per cent of falls): These half-stone, half-metal samples are
formed on or within melted asteroids by the mixing of metal core material
with silicate rocks.
Read More
April 11, 2017
This woman was live-streaming when a flaming meteor zipped behind her
A very bright meteor shot across the Southwest sky Monday night, and given
the population density of, say, Southern California, a lot of people were
out to see it. Among those were Dale Demi, was streaming a live video via
YouNow in San Diego. One of Demi’s viewers, Faye Heddings, recorded the
moment.

“Did you guys see that?” Demi asks.

Yes, we sure did. More than 300 people in Southern California, Arizona and
Las Vegas reported to the American Meteor Society that they saw the
fireball. Thirteen of those people heard a boom as it exploded into
fragments of space rock.
Read More
April 11, 2017
'I saw a meteor break up over Plymouth and it was amazing'
The last thing Ben Landricombe was expecting to see on his way to work was a
meteor.

But that's exactly what the 36-year-old, from Plymstock, claims he saw at
6am today.

Ben, a keen photographer, managed to capture the extraordinary sight - and
has produced these stunning pictures.

"I've never seen anything like it in my life," said Ben, who works for
Plymouth City Council. "I was late to work, but I think my boss was alright.
Read More
April 08, 2017
Meteorite Finder Fights China’s (Mostly Terrestrial) Property Law
BEIJING — One summer day, a Kazakh herder in northwest China noticed that a
giant black boulder had appeared overnight in the grasslands where he raises
sheep and cattle. He left it there, and it sat undisturbed for more than two
decades.

But in 2011, local officials declared the rock a meteorite and hauled it
away, arguing that natural resources were state property. So the herder and
his sons decided to sue.

“The meteorite wasn’t made on land, or even on the earth,” the family’s
lawyer, Sun Yi, said in a telephone interview from Shanghai. “It’s from
outer space, so it should belong to the person who first discovered it.”
Read More
April 05, 2017
Detectors excavate secrets of Cape Cod History
Ever wonder if old relics might be hiding right under your feet?

“All the time,” is the response of the group of Yarmouth hobbyists who
practice the art of metal detection in a quest to seek and recover artifacts
that have long hidden around Cape Cod and beyond. Typically, detectors are
hardy folk who spend many happy hours swinging their wands back and forth
across the region’s soils, beach sands and restless waters. Their goal is to
retrieve any coin, ring or other object either lost or discarded by our
forebears in the distant past.

Sometimes, the thrill of discovery even prompts these adventurers to carry
their bulky metal-detection equipment to foreign lands in search of
artifacts from long-forgotten eras. A mix of informed guesswork and a
healthy dose of imagination makes it possible for detectors to conjure from
their finds some interesting tales from our region’s history.
Read More
March 20, 2017
Sighting of meteorite's moon hit by Aberystwyth scientists
Space scientists in Aberystwyth believe they have captured the first
confirmed UK sighting of a meteorite hitting the Moon.

The image was taken on New Year's Day from a remotely operated telescope at
Aberystwyth University.

The lunar impact flash - an explosion of light caused by something hitting
the Moon's surface - was corroborated by a team of Italian astronomers.

Dr Tony Cook said the flashes were "notoriously difficult to record".

Dr Cook, who captured the image, said: "The meteorite would be travelling at
anywhere between 10 to 70km (6 to 43miles) per second as it hit the surface
of the Moon.
Read More

What to do if you find or have found a Meteorite
A Comprehensive Guide to Meteorite Identification
Read More

Meteorite Magazines

Meteorite Magazine serves as a forum for
communication between amateurs, collectors, dealers, educators and
researchers interested in meteorites. It is published quarterly in February,
May, August, and November.
Read
More

Meteorite Times Magazine is an on-line monthly
meteorite magazine full of meteorite articles, images, and people. Read and
learn about meteorites as seen through the eyes of meteorite collectors,
hunters and dealers as they hunt for and collect meteorites from around the
world. Join us each month for another magazine issue full of meteorite
information, news, and photography. Read
More

Meteorite Exchange Network
Announcing The Meteorite Exchange Network, a new global menu that allows you
to easily hop between our websites. We also have a new website with two
sections finished and a third under development.

The purpose of these new sites and network are to help both buyers and
sellers. As a buyer you’d like an easy way to find meteorites for sale. As a
seller you’d like more sales.
Read More

Meteorite USA
Meteorites USA is a meteorite hunting, meteorite collecting, and meteorite
information site. If you’re new to Meteorites USA you’ll see that the site
is chock full of meteorite information from how to identify meteorites,
meteorite hunting articles, meteorite photos, and even some very educational
meteorite videos.
Read More

International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA Inc.)
has one primary purpose: helping Meteorite Collectors in their search for
Authentic Meteorites for their collections and assisting others in helping
to learn more about meteorites. Whether they are new to the Meteorite World
or very knowledgeable, we want all Collectors to buy/trade with confidence
from our Members, knowing that every item will be exactly what it is
represented to be.
Read More

International Meteor Organization (IMO) was
founded in 1988 and has more than 250 members now. IMO was created in
response to an ever growing need for international cooperation of meteor
amateur work. The collection of meteor observations by several methods from
all around the world ensures the comprehensive study of meteor showers and
their relation to comets and interplanetary dust.
Read More

The Meteoritical Society is a non-profit scholarly
organization founded in 1933 to promote the study of extraterrestrial
materials, including meteorites and space mission returned samples, and
their history.
Read More

Meteorite Association of Georgia founded on July
14, 2007, the Meteorite Association of Georgia was established to bring
together meteorite enthusiasts both in Georgia and beyond to pursue their
common interest.
Read More

American Meteor Society Welcome to the home
of the American Meteor Society, Ltd., a non-profit scientific organization
established to inform, encourage, and support the research activities of
both amateur and professional astronomers who are interested in the
fascinating field of Meteor Astronomy.
Read More

North America Archaeology News

Archaeological news from around the world.
This site is updated daily with the latest world news.
Website
February 19, 2019
Archaeologists getting closer to figuring out what happened to 'Lost
Colony,' expert says
Archaeologists are getting closer to figuring out where members of the "Lost
Colony" went, according to Nicholas Luccketti, the principal investigator
and archaeologist with the James River Institute for Archaeology.

Luccketti’s presentation in late January at the Isle of Wight County Museum
in Smithfield focused on the "possible relocation" of some of the Roanoke
Island colonists to a site in eastern North Carolina named Site X. But he
said others from the Lost Colony, maybe even a large group, might have
migrated to somewhere near Site X.
Read More
February 18, 2019
Archaeologists Work at NY Site Where Human Bones Were Found
LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (AP) — Archaeology work continues at an upstate New York
construction site where the skeletal remains of several people have been
found at what's believed to be a Revolutionary War burial ground.

State archaeologists led by the New York State Museum were at the site this
week in Lake George, in the southern Adirondacks.

A work crew unearthed skeletal remains Feb. 7, while excavating an empty lot
for an apartment house. Work was halted, and experts were summoned to
examine the property for more remains.
Read More
February 14, 2019
Some of the rarest US coins ever found are hitting the market, thanks to NC
shipwreck
A stash of gold coins found Monday is being called the latest bit of proof
that a shipwreck 40-plus miles off the North Carolina coast is that of the
steamship Pulaski, which took half its wealthy passengers to the bottom of
the Atlantic in 1838.

The first 502 gold and silver coins plucked from a shipwreck off North
Carolina have been sold to a global coin dealer at a price that “wildly
exceeded” the recovery project’s expectations.

No one involved in the deal is saying what the coins fetched, but market
values suggest it was easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Read More
February 14, 2019
At Florida's gateway to space, archaeologists are in a race against time
Long before Cape Canaveral became home to advanced aerospace technologies,
indigenous people and early settlers developed their own tools to live on
the beaches and the swampy lands that would eventually become the gateway to
space.

Now, in a race against time, archaeologists from all over the state are
hurrying to uncover and document the undiscovered archaeological sites
across the Cape before they are eroded and lost to humankind forever.

"Every time you lose a piece of the past and a piece of the human story,
you're impoverishing your experience in the present," University of Central
Florida Associate Professor of Archaeology Stacy Barber told FLORIDA TODAY.
Read More
February 14, 2019
Dig will continue at Native American fort in Norwalk
NORWALK — A tiny but important, artifact-rich archaeological dig will extend
at least into the spring, giving researchers a chance to salvage more
evidence of the early contact between early Dutch traders and the Native
Americans who populated the high ground along the Norwalk River for
millennia.

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The research is now focused for the season in a Storrs-based laboratory that
has been screening soil samples that were excavated in recent months,
Read More
February 06, 2019
Ancient Native American canal discovered in Gulf Shores
Working on tips from locals, archaeologists announced the discovery of an
ancient canal cut through the sandy soil of the Fort Morgan peninsula 1,400
years ago.

The canal, dug in 600 A.D., once ran south from Oyster Bay to the northern
shore of Little Lagoon in Gulf Shores. It would have served as a sort of
prehistoric super highway, facilitating travel by dugout canoe from Mobile
Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

The canal is six tenths of a mile, making it one of the longest
pre-Columbian canals discovered in North America said Greg Waselkov, head of
the archaeology department at the University of South Alabama. Waselkov led
the recent excavation of the canal in a forested area near Little Lagoon.
Read More
February 05, 2019
Is it a sign? Huge wooden cross washes ashore on Fort Lauderdale beach
Bales of drugs, derelict vessels, seaweed, whales, and driftwood are among
the many items to wash up on South Florida’s beaches, but the latest flotsam
and jetsam has made believers of some beach-goers.

“It is fantastic,” said Mary Ann Smolinski, visiting from Michigan. “It’s
amazing. Very spiritual.”
Read More
February 03, 2019
Cobblestones at Poplar Forest Carriage Circle Revealed
FOREST, Va. (AP) — A team of archeologists working to restore the carriage
turnaround at Thomas Jefferson's summer retreat in Bedford County had an
unexpected surprise on a Friday morning: a visit from the third U.S.
president himself.

Or at least pretty close.

"This is amazing!" said Bill Barker, who portrays Jefferson at Colonial
Williamsburg and was in Bedford County shooting an orientation video for
Poplar Forest. "These stones have not seen the light of day for 200 years."
Read More
February 02, 2019
Dig Uncovers Details of First General Assembly Meeting Spot
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) — Jamestown archaeologists have uncovered the western
wall of the church that held the first meeting of representative government
in North America nearly 400 years ago.

With the discovery, which lay hidden beneath a 5-inch layer of concrete,
brick and dirt, the archaeologists know with certainly the full footprint of
the 1617 wooden church, the first of several built on the site.

It matches the 20-by-50-foot layout described in historical documents, said
David Givens, director of archaeology for Jamestown Rediscovery.
Read More
January 19, 2019
Archaeologists to Monitor Construction in Deadwood
DEADWOOD, S.D. (AP) — Anyone turning over little more than a shovelful of
dirt in the historic town of Deadwood can expect to have an archaeologist
peering over their shoulders in case any artifacts from the city's past are
unearthed.

OK, that's an exaggeration. But while residents are safe from having their
flower and vegetable garden plots scrutinized, any private or public
construction project requiring excavation is required to have a state
archaeologist monitor it in most of the town, which was named a national
historic landmark in 1961.

City zoning laws have an entire chapter on historic preservation, Deadwood
Historic Preservation Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker told the Rapid City
Journal.
Read More
January 16, 2019
A new clue could explain the mysterious disappearance of a Civil War
submarine
A broken pipe may help explain why a famous Civil War submarine sank off of
Charleston, South Carolina, more than 150 years ago.

The H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to successfully attack an enemy
ship in combat when it sank the wooden ship USS Housatonic on February 17,
1864. The Confederate vessel disappeared with all its eight crew members.

More than 130 years later the Hunley was discovered on the ocean floor. The
sub was raised and taken to a laboratory in North Charleston in 2000.
Read More
January 15, 2019
Three large asteroids prompt NASA to issue near Earth object alert
Three rogue asteroids are set to speed uncomfortably close to the Earth
tomorrow.

The largest of the trio could cause catastrophe if it smashes into our
planet, and is as large as the leaning tower of Pisa.

That’s according to NASA, which has listed the asteroids on its “near-Earth
objects” alert page.
Read More
January 12, 2019
Archaeologists Find Ancient Tool in Area That Can Unlock Age
DURYEA, Pa. (AP) — It wasn't only the stone tool — possibly more than 8,000
years old — that excited Al Pesotine.

It was also where volunteers with a local archaeology group found it — next
to a fire pit at the group's dig site in Duryea.

That context gave archaeologists with the local chapter of the Society for
Pennsylvania Archaeology a rare opportunity. They could carbon-date the
remnants of the fire pit to learn when prehistoric people were using that
very tool. Added to other information archaeologists have pieced together
from other sites, it shows when, where and how people were living thousands
of years ago.
Read More
January 04, 2019
A site thought to be linked to the Lost Colony is now part of a new state
nature preserve
A swatch of swamp and farm land at the head of Albemarle Sound that may
contain archaeological clues about the fate of the famed Lost Colony
is now a state nature preserve.

The Salmon Creek State Natural Area covers 1,000 acres in a remote corner of
Bertie County, where the creek meets the sound near the mouth of the Chowan
River. The N.C. Coastal Land Trust bought the land and recently gave it to
the state parks department.

The property had been approved for development of up to 2,800 homes and a
212-slip marina, said Camilla Herlevich, the land trust’s executive
director. Though that project was abandoned with the recession 10 years ago,
Herlevich said the owners put the property back on the market in early 2017.
Read More
January 03, 2019
New book sheds light on Harvard’s forgotten 1931 archaeology trek in eastern
Utah
SALT LAKE CITY — In the summer of 1931, a group of Harvard researchers
descended into eastern Utah to continue a study that first identified a new
Native American group that once called the area home. They took to horseback
and completed the longest archaeologist trip of its kind.

However, there’s little known about the trip or if it yielded any sort of
results because — for no known reason — it was never published. The
thousands of documents and hundreds of photos from the expedition were left
in boxes in the basement of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
at Harvard University and have remained there for decades. The trip remains
an archaeological mystery for that reason.
Read More
December 27, 2018
Archaeology Group: Work on Property Endangering Artifacts
NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) — A non-profit that identifies, acquires and preserves
archaeological sites in the United States has raised concerns that dirt and
construction work on county-owned land in Mississippi endangers artifacts
connected to what could be the birthplace of slavery in a region.

Jessica Crawford with The Archaeological Conservancy wrote to Adams County
Board of Supervisors attorney Scott Slover last week. She expressed concerns
that work associated with the construction of a power substation and
switching station for the former International Paper Company property is
destroying what remains of a 1720s French plantation, the Natchez Democrat
reported .
Read More
December 14, 2018
Iowa’s prehistoric value below surface
Megan Stroh Messerole and volunteers did some digs in the area over the
summer as part of her archaeology field school.

With hundreds of known archaeological sites along the banks of the Little
Sioux River, northwestern Iowa is a treasure for archaeology—a past of
intrinsic value that many modern locals have yet to discover.

“If you just go into a museum and see a couple rocks and don’t know what
you’re looking at, that’s all they are,” said Stroh Messerole, an
archaeologist for Sanford Museum in Cherokee. “A plate is just a plate
without a backstory.”
Read More
December 14, 2018
Underwater archaeologists research boats that sank in Lake Minnetonka
Whatever you do, don’t call them treasure hunters.

But along the park's northern edge, a heap of buried refuse — discovered
during work to build a retention pond to control runoff after a wildfire
swept through the area — has historians and archaeologists excited, even
giddy, about the possibility of learning more about how the wealthy lived in
Colorado Springs when it was founded.
Read More
December 07, 2018
The Most Amazing Historical Discoveries of 2018
1. A human jawbone becomes the earliest evidence for humans outside Africa.

Before this year, the oldest Homo sapiens fossil found outside Africa were
estimated to be between 90,000 and 120,000 years old. But in January, a team
of researchers revealed their discovery of an upper jawbone fossil at least
50,000 years older than that in a mountain cave in Israel, suggesting modern
humans may have migrated out of Africa far earlier than once thought.
Read More
December 03, 2018
The Archaeology Of Outer Space
When thinking of archaeology, you likely conjure up images of pyramids,
ancient relics, and a dusty mummy or two; but, what about astronauts and
space stations? On November 27th, the Australian research council announced
the recipients of their annual Discovery Program grants. Among the projects
chosen for funding was the International Space Station Archaeological
Project (ISSAP) led by Dr. Alice Gorman, of Flinders University in
Australia, and Dr. Justin Walsh, of Chapman University in the United States.
This grant was big news for the burgeoning field of space archaeology.
Read More
November 16, 2018
First look at archaeological dig near Garden of the Gods
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) An archaeological dig is giving us a first
hand look into the life of the Palmer family. General William Palmer founded
Colorado Springs.

The dig is between the entrance to Garden of the Gods park and the Glen
Eyrie Conference Center along the Camp Creek bike path. The city was about
to start construction, so archaeologists did a quick scan of the area and
found a treasure trove.

Someone found a shoe, some bricks and other old items. All belonging to the
most famous Colorado Springs family, the Palmers.
Read More
November 13, 2018
Ancient Artifacts Stolen 40 Years Ago in Alabama Recovered
MOUNDVILLE, Ala. (AP) — The recent recovery of three Native American
artifacts stolen nearly 40 years ago could be the thread that unravels the
mystery of the greatest antiquities theft in this part of the world.

Hundreds of pottery vessels, bottles, bowls, ornaments and jewelry items
were stolen from the Erskine Ramsey Archaeological Repository at the
University of Alabama's Moundville Archaeological Park in 1980. It was a
shot in the dark when archaeologists and others contributed to a reward fund
for information, which was announced in May.

The publicity worked, leading to the recovery of three vessels in August.

"We were all thinking we'd go to our graves without anything turning up from
this burglary," Jim Knight, curator emeritus of American Archaeology for the
Alabama Museum of Natural History at the university, said at a news
conference Monday. "This is one of the most exciting things that has
happened during my archaeological career.
Read More
November 13, 2018
Archaeology project planned for battlefield
STILLWATER, N.Y. — Veterans who fought in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
will join forces next spring for an archaeological project where the Second
Battle of Saratoga was fought on Oct. 7, 1777.

Veterans will conduct an artifact survey at Barber Wheatfield, one of the
most significant sites within Saratoga National Historical Park.

However, officials said an equally important goal of the project is helping
veterans develop skills they can use elsewhere in new careers.
Read More
November 12, 2018
Parks Official's Signature on Documents Raises Questions
PHOENIX (AP) — The deputy director of Arizona State Parks & Trails, who is
under investigation over accusations the agency bulldozed over
archaeological sites, once signed a federal grant application over the
objections of a staff archaeologist, according to documents obtained Monday
by The Arizona Republic.

The report adds another layer of questions about an agency whose director,
Sue Black, is facing a slew of allegations including disregarding laws
protecting historical and Native American sites.
Read More
November 02, 2018
Archaeologists Discover Evidence Of Connecticut's Earliest English Colony
On the grounds of Wethersfield's Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, archaeologists
have discovered evidence of the oldest English colony in Connecticut.

In 2016, the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum decided to add a new education and
visitor center on the premises. To ensure the addition would not disturb any
historically significant artifacts on the site, they hired the Public
Archaeology Survey Team to conduct an archeological survey.

Ground-penetrating radar revealed three potential sites. Two were trash pits
– one from the 19th century, the other from the early 20th century. Those
sites yielded plenty of artifacts.
Read More
November 01, 2018
UWF archaeologists make new discoveries during Emanuel Point I artifact
restoration
New wrinkles are being discovered in a 450-year-old artifact at the
University of West Florida's Division of Anthropology & Archaeology.

During a 1996 excavation, UWF archaeologists discovered an ancient armored
Spanish breast plate — worn by conquistador Tristan de Luna's army in 1559 —
at the site of the first Emanuel Point I ship wreck near Pensacola. The
breast plate was found in the stern of the ship during one of several
excavations conducted since initial discovery was made in 1992.
Read More
November 01, 2018
Archaeologists uncover history in the waterfront
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Alexandria, a Virginia city settled on the Potomac River,
is known for its old town history that continues to unfold.

Earlier this year, archaeologists discovered three historic ships in the
sparkling Alexandria waterfront. The city is working with a team of experts
to research and excavate these exciting pieces of history.

"I love being out on a beautiful day like this one, seeing history come out
of the ground and contribute to our understanding of early Alexandrians and
particularly our maritime history," said archaeologist Eleanor Breen. "This
is portside Alexandria archaeology. We are illuminating the past."
Read More
November 01, 2018
Archaeological finds kept secret in public filings
BRANDON — While finding Native American artifacts on construction sites
isn’t common, when they are found the state takes steps to protect them by
keeping them secret.

One case in point is the proposed Babcock Solar project.

Babcock Solar Farm LLC, backed by Conti Solar based in Edison, New Jersey,
has filed for a certificate of public good with the Public Utility
Commission to build a 2.2 megawatt solar facility at the intersection of
Park Street Extension and 21 Country Club Road. Among the items its permit
application includes is an archaeological survey conducted in June which
found three concentrations of “pre-contact” Native American artifacts.

These artifacts, said Dr. Charles Knight, assistant director of the
University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program, which conducted the
survey, were mostly “lithic debitage,” the sharp flakes of stone left over
from the making of stone tools. Knight said in an interview Thursday that
such deposits show stone tools were once made in the area and indicate the
site may have had other uses as well.
Read More
November 01, 2018
Students find 6,000-year-old ax at George Washington estate
MOUNT VERNON, Va. – Six millennia after a stone ax was carved, it was
rediscovered by a pair of Ohio teens on an archaeological dig at George
Washington's Mount Vernon estate.

The Washington Post reports Mount Vernon officials announced the Oct. 12
find Wednesday. They called it a major discovery that provides a look into
the lives of those who lived on the Virginia site before it became the first
president's home.

The 7-inch (17.8-centimeter) ax head was found by Archbishop Hoban High
School seniors Dominic Anderson and Jared Phillips while helping map out the
dimensions of what's believed to be a cemetery for slaves and their
descendants.
Read More
October 24, 2018
Discovery of Ancient Spear points in Texas Has Some Archaeologists
Questioning the History of Early Americas
Archaeologists have discovered two previously unknown forms of spear point
technology at a site in Texas. The triangular blades appear to be older than
the projectile points produced by the Paleoamerican Clovis culture, an
observation that’s complicating our understanding of how the Americas were
colonized—and by whom.

Clovis-style spear points began to appear around 13,000 to 12,700 years ago,
and they were produced by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers known as the Clovis
people. Made from stones, these leaf-shaped (lanceolate) points featured a
shallow concave base and a fluted, or flaked, base that allowed them to be
placed on the end of a spear.
Read More
October 22, 2018
Archaeologists find clues at the Yellowstone ice patch
Idaho Falls, Idaho • Although archaeology has been around for centuries,
“ice patch” archaeology really became a new discipline in 1991 when Otzi the
Iceman — a 5,000-year-old body nearly perfectly preserved — was found high
in the Italian-Austrian Alps by hikers.

Otzi was found because permanent ice patches and glaciers have been melting
back and retreating in recent decades. The Iceman, older than Egyptian
pyramids, offered a peek at a human from the Copper Age. Interestingly, it
appears he ran up into mountains to escape combatants and died with an arrow
point stuck in a shoulder.
Read More
October 21, 2018
America’s archaeology data keeps disappearing – even though the law says the
government is supposed to preserve it
Archaeology – the name conjures up images of someone carefully sifting the
sands for traces of the past and then meticulously putting those relics in a
museum. But today’s archaeology is not just about retrieving artifacts and
drawing maps by hand. It also uses the tools of today: 3D imaging, LiDAR
scans, GPS mapping and more.

Today, nearly all archaeological fieldwork in the U.S. is executed by
private firms in response to legal mandates for historic preservation, at a
cost of about a billion dollars annually. However, only a minuscule fraction
of the data from these projects is made accessible or preserved for future
research, despite agencies’ clear legal obligations to do so. Severe loss of
these data is not unusual – it’s the norm.
Read More
October 14, 2018
Dig fails to unearth 100-year-old boat said to be buried in West Palm
backyard
An archaeological dig failed to unearth the 100-year-old schooner said to be
buried in a North Flagler Drive backyard, clearing the way for West Palm
Beach to start work on a retention pond to ease flooding in the sometimes
soggy neighborhood.

But did the diggers dig deep enough?

A local who remembered the ship’s first being detected during a swimming
pool excavation in the 1970s said the 1800’s schooner was buried in muck 8
to 10 feet down, so the city’s archaeologists, who only went 4 to 6 feet
into the sandy fill on top of that muck, wouldn’t have found the vessel.
Read More
October 14, 2018
Business of archaeology helps preserve Ohio history
Forget sifting through the dirt.
The cultural resource management company Ohio Valley Archaeology takes a
high-tech approach to examining the ground beneath our feet. Owner and
President Jennifer Pecora leads a staff of seven who produce geophysical
surveys and aerial mapping by using such instruments as ground-penetrating
radar.

Formed in 1997 and run by Pecora since 2006, the firm serves public and
private clients curious to know — or required by law to investigate — what
once existed on proposed construction sites.

Q: What is a cultural resource management company?
A: There is a federal law that is Section 106. It’s the National Historic
Preservation Act. If there is any federal funding involved with any type of
groundbreaking or construction, and if the area had not been surveyed
previously, they need to go through what’s called either a cultural resource
management survey or archaeological survey.
Read More
October 07, 2018
American People Suffering Historical Amnesia With Many Citizens Knowing
“Virtually Nothing” About Their History
Many people regard the United States of America as the world’s foremost
democratic police force, and as such, one would expect its citizens to be
well-informed regarding their historical and political roots. A new study,
however, shows that this expectation is far from reality.

National Knowledge Test Causes Concern
A functioning democratic republic operates on the flow and freedom of
information which should in effect create an “informed” confidant populous.
Contrary to this, according to the results of a recent government survey,
which was conducted by Lincoln Park Strategies, a nationally recognized
full-service analytic research firm, the majority of American people are
greatly uneducated about even the most basic facts of the Nation’s history
to the extent where the majority “couldn’t even pass a basic citizenship
test” according to a report by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship
Foundation.
Read More
September 19, 2018
Wreck of Captain Cook's HMS Endeavour 'discovered' off US coast
The possible discovery of HMS Endeavour off the east coast of the US has
been hailed as a “hugely significant moment” in Australian history, but
researchers have warned they are yet to “definitively” confirm whether the
wreck has been located.

On Wednesday Fairfax Media reported archaeologists from the Rhode Island
Marine Archaeology Project, or Rimap, had pinpointed the final resting place
of the famous vessel in which Captain James Cook reached Australia in 1770.
Read More
September 17, 2018
Federal Grants Awarded to History, Archaeology Projects
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Federal grants totaling more than $476,000 have been
awarded to 11 historic preservation and archaeology projects in Indiana
communities.

The National Park Service grants announced last week include three of more
than $50,000 each to Ball State University for projects in Henry, Montgomery
and Ripley counties.

One will be used to complete an archaeological survey of about 80 acres (32
hectares) around historic homestead sites within Versailles State Park that
may expand what's known about early statehood.
Read More
September 07, 2018
Ancient remains discovered in Frio County
The discovery happened by chance. In July, while conducting a routine bridge
check, an inspector from the Texas Department of Transportation noticed
something odd. It was nestled in a steep earthen embankment directly under
the highway span in Frio County.

It was the back of a human skull, along with a spine.

Initially, the situation was treated by local authorities as a criminal
matter, under the assumption that the bones could be connected to a cold
case. But several days into the investigation, forensic investigators found
an arrowhead in the pelvic region. The remains were also found alongside
remnants of a Native American wood and clay structure.
Read More
September 07, 2018
When is it OK For Archaeologists to Dig Up the Dead?
Banana was code for human bones, on one archaeological dig where I’ve
worked. We were excavating a cemetery, several thousand years old, and had
permits from the appropriate authorities. However, certain religious groups
in the area had a history of protesting any destruction of burials, so we
kept our work discrete.

We packed excavated skeletons in boxes labeled “bananas” and referenced the
fruit when discussing the project in public.
Read More
September 04, 2018
Archaeology Center discovers vandalism at ancient sites
CORNVILLE -- The Verde Valley Archaeology Center has alerted U.S. Forest
Service Law Enforcement to vandalism of a ancient dwelling site on the
Coconino National Forest in Cornville. Another instance of vandalism was
discovered by Site Watch volunteers the week before at a second site in
Cornville.

The mission of the Verde Valley Archaeology Center includes the protection
and preservation of archaeological sites in the Verde Valley. VVAC Site
Watch (www.vvarchcenter.org/sitewatch) is a program of the Verde Valley
Archaeology Center that promotes the importance of education about common
cultural and natural heritages and encourages public responsibility in the
protection and preservation of cultural and natural resources on public and
private lands.
Read More
September 03, 2108
Forest Service hiring for 1,000 spring and summer jobs
The U.S. Forest Service is hiring 1,000 temporary workers for spring and
summer of 2019 in Oregon and Washington, the federal agency announced on
Friday.

Applications will be accepted between Sept. 17 and Oct. 12 for positions in
fields including firefighting, recreation, natural resources, timber,
engineering, visitor services and archaeology.
Read More
September 01, 2108
Uncovering the Real Story Behind the 'East Bay Mystery Walls'
For more than a century, people in the Bay Area — and especially the East
Bay — have puzzled over the existence of stone walls scattered on ridges
from near San Jose north through the Berkeley Hills.

Sometimes the walls are built in long straight lines. Sometimes they form
angles. Occasionally you’ll find rectangular or circular constructions.
Read More
August 22, 2018
SC County Evaluating Archaeological Site Under Construction
A South Carolina county has called in a private archaeology firm to
determine the extent of potential damage to a known Native American
archaeological site under development.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A project to build a parking lot alongside South
Carolina's Saluda River may have wrecked an archaeological site where Native
Americans lived for thousands of years.

The State reports that arrowheads and other artifacts were found in June
after bulldozers went to work at the Saluda Riverwalk project, which
Richland County is developing in conjunction with the Riverbanks Zoo.
Read More
August 16, 2018
Why Military Veterans Are Turning to Archaeology
A partnership between a crowdsourced archaeology organization and a veterans
recovery program has opened up new possibilities for American military
veterans in a field that may once have seemed like a stretch: archaeology.

DigVentures, a company based in the United Kingdom, aims to change the way
archaeology is done by expanding it beyond academic research settings. They
crowdfund financial support, crowdsource site locations, and use real-time
digitization technology to create collaborative digs that are accessible to
experts and enthusiastic novices alike.
Read More
August 16, 2018
How Archaeologists Play A Role In The Forest Service's Response To Wildfires
When wildfire starts, a lot of people decide what areas should burn, and
where a fire should be fought. One of those people is an archaeologist from
the U.S. Forest Service.

Fires continue to burn through the West from the Rocky Mountains to the
Pacific coastal forests. The first priority of emergency responders is of
course to save lives and then to save homes, but many of these areas also
contain historic and cultural artifacts. Maggie Mullen of Wyoming Public
Radio talked to an archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service who helps
decide what should be preserved.
Read More
August 01, 2018
Archaeological Dig at Gray-Cloud Home Attracts Neighbors, History Buffs
For the last month, archaeologists have been scraping, sifting and digging
around a 19th century home in the city’s Old Irving Park neighborhood,
creating what might look like a mess in the yard.

But there’s a method to their madness.

Neighbors have suspected for decades that this home was a stop along the
Underground Railroad, the network of people and locations helped slaves
escape to freedom.
Read More
July 23, 2018
Archaeologists identify ancient North American mounds using new image
analysis technique
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - Researchers at Binghamton University, State University at
New York have used a new image-based analysis technique to identify
once-hidden North American mounds, which could reveal valuable information
about pre-contact Native Americans.

"Across the East Coast of the United States, some of the most visible forms
for pre-contact Native American material culture can be found in the form of
large earthen and shell mounds," said Binghamton University anthropologist
Carl Lipo. "Mounds and shell rings contain valuable information about the
way in which past people lived in North America. As habitation sites, they
can show us the kinds of foods that were eaten, the way in which the
community lived, and how the community interacted with neighbors and their
local environments.
Read More
July 14, 2018
Archaeologists Come to Eckley to Study Our Past
ECKLEY, Pa. (AP) — A house at 104 Main St. has an unpainted porch and
bare-board siding typical of an old miner's home, but it suited Paul Shackel.

Shackel selected property because he wanted his archaeology students from
the University of Maryland to dig around a home that had been occupied for
most of the 165 years as the village developed from company town to state
museum.

Just as the home is the middle of the street, it had middle-class residents.
The mine owner and foremen lived in the wealthy Protestant downtown on the
western side of Main Street, which Shackel and his students might study next
year, whereas the lower-earning laborers who lived at a house on Back Street
around which the group excavated two years ago.
Read More
July 09, 2018
Archaeologists, students dig in at Quartz Lake
FAIRBANKS — During the short summer in Alaska, scientists are busy
conducting field work. With the increased daylight and warmer temperatures,
they can work longer hours and get more done. Right now, researchers are
traveling all over the state, hoping to make new discoveries.

That includes students, too. For the past couple of years, high schoolers
enrolled in the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Summer Research
Academy have camped out at Quartz Lake, north of Delta Junction, and helped
with archaeological research. They work with scientists from the University
of Alaska Museum of the North to map and collect bone and stone artifacts
from seven different sites along the shoreline.
Read More
July 08, 2018
UWF archaeology students explore Civil War history in Chimney Park dig
University of West Florida archaeology students are spending the summer
digging through layers of history at Pensacola's Chimney Park.

Thousands of people pass the towering brick chimney off Scenic Highway every
day, but most do not realize the important role the site played in the
region's history, said Brianna Patterson, a graduate student who is writing
her master's thesis on the excavation of the antebellum mill property.
Read More
July 06, 2018
Washington family donates archaeological materials
Donation to Colville Tribal History/Archaeology program includes cradleboard
that once belonged to Cull White

Coulee Dam – As an earlier pioneer and settler in the area now known as
Washington Flats, Nat Washington Sr. clearly envisioned the potential of
harnessing the Columbia River as a source of power and irrigation for the
Columbia Basin.

The family also experienced the mighty and extreme authority of the river
when Nat Sr., his brother James and sister Peachy all drowned in the same
event, witnessed by 12 year old, future state senator, Nat Washington Jr.
Read More
July 04, 2018
Archaeologist duo creates Old Army Records website
SHERIDAN — Two local archaeologists discovered a mutual passion for history
while working in an excavation pit together for a school archaeology project
as Sheridan College students in 1994.

Kevin O’Dell and Jim Powers quickly became friends, eventually coworkers and
now co-owners of Old Army Records.

Their specific interest in 19th century U.S. military history connected them
again when O’Dell asked Powers to help him with contract work through a
grant for the Fort Fetterman Battlefield.

“The Fetterman project prompted wanting to get into more information about
the individuals that died, especially the enlisted men,” O’Dell said. “(We)
basically (wanted to find out) who they were as individuals, their
character, backgrounds and what not.”
Read More
July 03, 2018
Why the Revolutionary War battlefield in Beaufort has never been preserved
BEAUFORT, S.C. (WSAV) - The 1779 Battle of Port Royal was the first
Revolutionary War battle on land in South Carolina. It's also the only
battle in which two of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence
fought.

But you probably wouldn't know it happened off of Highway 21 in Beaufort,
because it's never been preserved as a national monument.

"If you look down here towards that ditch area right there, that is the area
where the British tried to come at the Americans, which were basically right
where we're standing," said Daniel Battle, an archaeologist with Cypress
Cultural Consultants.
Read More
June 22, 2018
More colonial burials found under St. Augustine streetST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – More burials of what could be St. Augustine’s
first colonists have been discovered. They are within inches of where
burials were found during an archeological dig in 2017.

This time, they were found while construction workers were working on
Charlotte Street in downtown St. Augustine. The city archeologist was
monitoring their work and ordered construction be halted as soon as a bone
was found.

The skeletons are believed to date between 1572 to 1702. It’s believed they
were buried under the floor of the first Catholic parish church in what is
now the United States. It was customary during colonial times to bury people
under the church floor because it was considered holy ground. St. Augustine
was founded in 1565. According to historical documents, the church was
established near this site in 1572. It was burned in 1702 when the rest of
the city was sacked by the British.
Read More
June 18, 2018
A Discovery In Ga. Uncovers Details From Horrific Time In Native American
History
At an archaeological site in Georgia’s Blue Ridge foothills, in the deep
woods of Stephens County, researchers sift through dirt to find pieces of
pottery and other evidence to understand the era in the early 1600s when
Native Americans’ lives and culture were disrupted.

Nineteen-year-old Tim Pigeon is from small-town Oklahoma, but he’s spent
time the past two summers in Georgia’s Blue Ridge foothills, in the deep
woods of Stephens County.

He’s helping out at an archaeological site there, sifting through dirt to
find pieces of pottery.
Read More
June 12, 2018
How Climate Change Could Destroy Thousands of Archaeological Sites
Historical sites across the globe are at risk due to rising sea levels, but
without reliable data we can't even assess the full scope of the problem,
let alone solve it.

The famous moai of Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island) are, to many
people, the face of archaeology. These massive statues made of dark,
weathered stone, occasionally speckled with pale lichen, stare out across
their island in the blue waters of the south Pacific. Their heads are
oversized compared to their bodies, which gives them a dignity appropriate
to their age; the oldest were crafted around 1200 C.E. But the moai may not
stand on Rapa Nui for much longer. They're in danger from a very 21st
century threat: climate change.
Read More
June 11, 2018
Indiana Jones' archaeology ideas? They belong in a museum!
On the 37th anniversary of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' real ASU
archaeologists bust Hollywood-influenced myths

It’s a disclaimer that echoes passionately through the lecture halls of
every beginning archaeology course: It’s not like the Indiana Jones movies!

Inspiring a new generation of researchers to value and explore the past is
Dr. Jones’ single contribution to the field. But for those who commit their
time and expertise to the study of past humans, the iconic, whip-cracking
rogue has become a major cliché.
Read More
June 08, 2018
In digging for Shaker remnants, history unearthed, veterans find avenue of
rehabilitation
NEW LEBANON — Trowels in hand, American veterans, civilians and children
teamed up with professional archaeologists to investigate one of the oldest
Shaker settlements in the United States.

For the second year in a row, DigVentures, a business that uses crowdfunding
to host archaeological excavations, has broken ground at the Darrow School,
where it is searching for remnants of the Shaker community that first
arrived in the area in 1781.

From May 22 to June 3, DigVentures was joined at the site by a nonprofit
that serves veterans by sending them to archaeological research sites so
they can participate in excavations.
Read More
June 08, 2018
History's mysteries come to life in archaeologist's hands
Michael Siebert stepped into a knee-deep pit on the grounds of Fort
Frederica National Monument last week as if he were dropping in on old
neighbors.

Make that really old neighbors. The likes of Maj. William Horton and Richard
Oldner have not been seen around these parts for nearly 300 years.
Nonetheless, Siebert spoke of the two 18th century settlers with a
familiarity and immediacy that suggested they were right here among us on
this beautiful June day in 2018
Read More
June 04, 2018
Jamestown Unearthed: Cellar under church catches experts by surprise
As archaeologists at Jamestown Rediscovery continue to dig into the Historic
Jamestowne church that has stood at the site of the James Fort since 1906,
they’ve uncovered something they weren’t expecting.

An abandoned cellar lies underneath the holiest place in the church, and it
may contain details about life within the first permanent English colony —
but archaeologists will have to dig to the bottom of the cellar before they
can get to the bottom of the mystery.

Two previous brick churches have stood where the Memorial Church now stands
in Historic Jamestowne. Historical records show the second was built by
colonists in the 1640s and was in use for more than a century. The first
brick church was built in 1617, meaning the cellar and the structure above
it must have been built prior to the church’s construction.
Read More
June 02, 2018
Archaeological field school from SIUC discovers a previously unknown
American fort
CARBONDALE — For decades, historians have believed that a single fort
overlooking Kaskaskia served as a fort for both French and American troops.
But when Mark Wagner and his team of anthropology students began an
archaeology field school class on the site last year, they made a startling
discovery.

Standing tall on the site of Fort Kaskaskia is a sign that details the
presumed story of a fort built by the French in the 1750s that later was
renovated and occupied by the American Army in 1803. The most important
event in the history of the short-lived American fort was a visit by the
Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803 to recruit 11 soldiers for their
expedition to explore the American West. Finding this area to be of
interest, Wagner and his team of SIU students conducted a test excavation
within the French fort in 2017. After evaluating the recovered artifacts, it
became clear to the professor that an American Army never inhabited the
earlier French fort.
Read More
June 01, 2018
Conservatism took hold here 1,000 years ago. Until the people fled.
During the eighth century, a new kind of civilization arose in New Mexico’s
Chaco Canyon. It started a social movement that swept across what is now the
U.S. Southwest, transforming people’s beliefs about how to live, worship and
farm. For the next six centuries, Ancestral Puebloan peoples built their
communities in imitation of the ones at Chaco, celebrating its culture. But
as generations passed, that culture became a rigid tradition, representing a
history that some people wanted to escape. As the 14th century drew to a
close, the entire Chaco population abandoned the canyon, never to return.
Read More
May 24, 2018
Ancient Native American village in Louisiana reveals its secrets
An ancient Native American village in Louisiana is revealing its secrets
thanks to new research.

The study of ancient mound builders who lived in the Mississippi River Delta
near present-day New Orleans offers fresh insight into how the settlements
emerged and why they were abandoned.
Read More
May 29, 2018
It Was America’s First English Colony. Then It Was Gone
From the English ship Hopewell anchored off the coast of what is now North
Carolina, Governor John White watched with elation as a column of smoke rose
into the summer dusk.

The plume from Roanoke Island “put us in good hope that some of the colony
were there expecting my return out of England,” he wrote later. Three years
had passed since the governor had set out from the first English settlement
in the New World on what was to be a brief resupply mission, leaving behind
more than a hundred men, women, and children. But his return voyage had been
delayed again and again by the outbreak of war with Spain. At last, on
August 18, 1590, White and a party of sailors waded ashore on Roanoke
Island. According to White’s account of events, they spotted fresh
footprints but met no one. As the men climbed a sandy bank, they encountered
a tree with the carved letters “C R O.” This was, the governor explained, a
prearranged code. If the settlers were to leave the island, they should
carve their destination into a tree or post. Adding a cross would mean they
left in an emergency.
Read More
May 21, 2018
Organization to start new archaeological dig on Darrow School campus for
Shaker artifacts
NEW LEBANON — Archaeologists will start its third excavation today on the
grounds of the Darrow School, which was the site of one of the first Shaker
communities in the state.

The organization previously searched for artifacts on the property, 110
Darrow Road, in 2013 and 2017. This year the dig site will be about the same
size as previous years, said DigVentures Managing Director Lisa Westcott
Wilkins, and will be on a location where an old Shaker house once stood.

“The Mount Lebanon site is very important to us,” Wilkins said. “We are very
excited about this spot. It is important for us to have this opportunity to
look back and investigate this old, very forward-thinking society.”
Read More
May 14, 2018
Native Insight: Northfield man finds 3,000-year-old axe on Vermont lakeshore
The subject I want to discuss this week is a rare find that could have been
addressed almost two years ago, when I first caught wind of it. I have,
instead, been sitting on it in anticipation of additional information coming
to light. Well, I can wait no longer, and will now go forward with what I
have about an important Vermont discovery made by a Northfield
metal-detecting sleuth.

That man is Kenn Jordan, proprietor of Jordan Metal Art and a talented metal
artist, not to mention a devoted metal-detecting enthusiast. We’re not here
to study his work, but rather his play, a hobby. What we’re looking at is an
ancient copper artifact he found on the Fourth of July 2016, while working
the shoreline near his NorthWoods camp on Lake Salem in Derby, Vt., a
Northeast Kingdom hamlet bordering Canada. Finally, this relic made some
3,000 years ago — yes, that’s right, 1,000 years before Christ — has made it
into a press account by Vermont State Archaeologist Francis “Jess” Robinson,
who took possession of the adze or celt or axe soon after it was recovered
from the lake.
Read More
May 12, 2018
Trip to Oregon's Cascadia Cave Brings Archaeology to Life
SWEET HOME, Ore. (AP) — Only some of the petroglyphs catch the eye right
away.

So Tony Farque held up a flashlight and clicked the button to trigger a
strobe. Light flickered on the rock wall towering above him, revealing a
hidden tapestry of carvings. Farque said the strobe light mimics the glow of
pitch torches used by Native Americans who carved the mysterious etchings in
the rock thousands of years ago.

"This is the largest and most complete rock art site in western Oregon by
far," said Farque, archaeologist for the Sweet Home Ranger District of the
Willamette National Forest. "There is a lot here."

During the past 25 years, Farque has led the hike to Cascadia Cave more than
450 times, introducing about 8,500 people to the special place. The site is
about 60 miles northeast of Eugene off Highway 20.
Read More
May 06, 2018
Ships Unearthed in Virginia Offer Glimpse of Colonial Era
OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Nestled in centuries of dirt and debris, several
well-preserved ships and artifacts have been unearthed that offer a glimpse
of life at what was once one of the busiest ports in the North American
colonies.

At the site for Robinson Landing, a new townhouse and condominium
development along the Potomac River here, excavations have uncovered the
protruding, curved wooden bones of the ships. Three ships were scuttled and
buried here centuries ago as Alexandria sought to expand its land into the
deeper waters of the river.
Read More
May 04, 2018
Ancient artifacts seized from Hobby Lobby returned to Iraq
OKLAHOMA CITY - Thousands of ancient clay tablets, seals and other Iraqi
archaeological objects that were smuggled into the U.S. and shipped to the
head of arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby were returned to the Iraqi
government on Wednesday.

The Oklahoma City-based private company, whose devout Christian owners won a
2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling exempting them from providing certain
contraceptive coverage for employees, agreed to pay a $3 million fine last
year to settle a lawsuit over the company's role in the smuggling of the
artifacts, which authorities say were looted from the war-torn country.
Read More
May 04, 2018
Adult mammoth bones found in Wyoming
After four days of intensive and hurried excavation, a crew of about 15
archaeologists and helpers removed the intact backbone and ribs of what is
believed to be an adult mammoth from the shoreline of Wyoming's Buffalo Bill
Reservoir on Tuesday.

"This was a salvage operation. We were doing triage," said Bonnie Smith, an
archaeologist with the Draper Museum of Natural History in Cody, Wyo., who
helped with the dig.
Read More
May 03, 2018
Midewin prairie dig may unearth clues about ancient culture that
disappeared, researchers hope
bout 400 years ago, a group of people set up camp just south of Joliet,
engaging in agriculture and hunting for about 10 summers. Several decades
later, the group disappeared.

Now, their trash has become archaeological treasure that could provide clues
about what happened to that culture. And they’re inviting local volunteers
to help with the project.
Read More
May 01, 2018
Archaeology Field School Returning to Colonial Military Site
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A summertime archaeological dig is returning to a
community along the upper Hudson River that saw heavy military activity
during the 18th century.

SUNY Adirondack's archaeology field school will run from July 9 through Aug.
17 in Fort Edward, 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Albany.

The Washington County village was home to Rogers Rangers and the largest
British outpost in the American colonies during the French and Indian War.
The community college's six-week dig will focus on areas of Rogers Island
and sites along the river where merchants did business.
Read More
April 24, 2018
This UH Research Center Is Revolutionizing Archaeology
The year was 2012; the place, the Honduran rainforest. A small plane flew
overhead, dangling an expensive pulsing laser over the dense, leafy canopy.
Within just a few hours, Ramesh Shrestha, director of UH’s National Center
for Airborne Laser Mapping, spotted it: a place forgotten for centuries, now
visible in the form of a crude rectangular shape scratched into the earth.
“Nature doesn’t make rectangles, and yet there it was,” he remembers. “When
we removed the trees, it was unmistakable.”

Afterward, the two filmmakers who’d organized that search, who’d been hoping
to find the mythic Ciudad Blanca (“White City”), were hailed for discovering
the ruins of what they dubbed the City of the Monkey God. The find featured
in National Geographic and Outside, a TV documentary, and even a book, The
Lost City of the Monkey God, published last year.
Read More
April 22, 2018
Children dig in at junior archaeologist event at Harriet Tubman park in
Auburn
AUBURN — Colin Kingery's eyes rarely darted from the dirt he was digging
through for artifacts Saturday.

Colin, 6, and his sister, Nora, 4, were at a junior archaeologist event at
the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn. The U.S. National
Park Service hosted the event, in which service employees guided children
through a "dig" and recorded their observations.

Colin proudly showed off his fossil books to the employees before the dig.
Colin, with gloves on, dug through a large plastic tub filled with dirt to
uncover objects such as what appeared to be pottery pieces. Nora hovered by
her father Lisle Kingery's legs at first, but eventually joined in on a
separate dig with her brother.
Read More
April 09, 2018
US, Mexican Archaeologists Unearth Sonoran Desert’s Past and Present
MEXICO CITY - Researchers from Mexico and the U.S. are exploring ancient
archaeological sites in Mexico, near the Sonora-Arizona border. Their
studies might shed light not only on the region’s past but also give context
to political issues facing indigenous communities today.

The border has been an obstacle to unify archaeological studies from both
sides of the border. Arizona’s sites have been largely studied, but the
Sonoran ones have gained less attention as archaeology has focused more on
central-south Mexico.
Read More
April 06, 2018
The mystery of the mummy’s head: how the FBI helped crack a 4,000-year-old
case
In 1915, a team of U.S. archaeologists excavating the ancient Egyptian
necropolis of Deir el-Bersha blasted into a hidden tomb. Inside the cramped
limestone chamber, they were greeted by a gruesome sight: a mummy’s severed
head perched on a cedar coffin.

The room, which the researchers labeled Tomb 10A, was the final resting
place for a governor named Djehutynakht (pronounced juh-HOO-tuh-knocked) and
his wife. At some point during the couple’s 4,000-year slumber, grave
robbers ransacked their burial chamber and plundered its gold and jewels.
The looters tossed a headless, limbless mummified torso into a corner before
attempting to set the room on fire to cover their tracks.
Read More
April 05, 2018
Montpelier Archaeologists Employ New Technology to Reveal Slave Experience
Archaeologists at James Madison's Montpelier are getting a glimpse into the
property's past by using new technology that allows them to see things
they’ve never before been able to see.

"This is a dream come true for me; this is Christmas in April," says Matthew
Reeves, Montpelier's director of archaeology.

This technology - called lidar - allows archaeologists to see paths through
the woods that date back to the 1700s. They say these trails were walked
every day by slaves.
Read More
April 05, 2018
Ella Axelrod ’19 Uncovers Artifacts and Passion for Archaeology
Some students enter college with an inkling of what they want to study, and
Ella Axelrod ’19, was no different: they had a sneaking suspicion of their
interest in archaeology after participating on an archaeology field trip in
eighth grade. At CC, Axelrod dove in head first, talking their way into
Professor Ruth Van Dyke’s archaeology class right after finishing their FYE,
a 300-level class that took place in Castroville, Texas, north of San
Antonio. The class sought to find signs of the early Alsacean settlements,
built by Henri Castro and the French people he brought to the area in the
mid 1840’s.
Read More
April 01, 2018
UPDATE: Ship’s hull secured on beach after attempt to move it fails
Officials had to resort to their second plan of securing the hull section in
place Thursday evening after the equipment that was planned to move it got
stuck in the sand and couldn’t make it to the site.

Tonya Creamer, spokeswoman for the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime
Museum, said Friday morning that the artifact is still on the beach and
researchers plan to continue collecting as much information from it as they
can.

Local researchers will get to spend more time gathering information from a
large section of a wooden ship’s hull that washed ashore south of Ponte
Vedra Beach earlier this week after securing permission and the means to
move it to a better protected area of the beach.
Read More
April 01, 2018
Oldest Human Footprints In North America Found On Canadian Coast
Along the shore of tiny Calvert Island, not far from Vancouver, researchers
found a series of human footprints in 2015. Thorough analysis of the prints
has now revealed they are the oldest in North America, made by several
people more than 13,000 years ago.

The field team that found the footprints included several archaeologists,
students from the University of Victoria, as well as representatives from
the Heiltsuk First Nation and the Wuikinuxv First Nation. Writing today in
the journal PLOS One, lead author Duncan McLaren of the University of
Victoria and the Hakai Research Institute and his colleagues detail what
they have learned in the past three years from the 29 footprints.
Read More
March 21, 2018
Georgia Southern's archaeological repository uncovers the past
When you think of archaeology you may envision Indiana Jones uncovering
extravagant artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant, but real life archeology
is more concerned with preserving and studying the past.

Conserving the past is exactly what Georgia Southern University is trying to
do with its recently built archaeological repository and archaeology
laboratories on its Statesboro Campus.
Read More
March 21, 2018
Thousands of Native American artifacts unearthed in Camden archaeological
dig
Nearly 10,000 Native American artifacts — a rectangular ceramic vessel, tool
fragments, arrowheads, and other projectile points — have been discovered at
two archaeological excavation sites in Camden.

Along with the hearthstones, animal bones, and remains of plants likely used
for food, medicine, and fuel found during the excavations, the materials may
shed light on the lives of indigenous people who camped along the Delaware
River as early as 4,000 years ago.

Some of the objects will be donated to and displayed by the Camden County
Historical Society museum in Camden.
Read More
March 19, 2018
2 more centuries-old ships unearthed in Old Town Alexandria
WASHINGTON — Two additional centuries-old ships have been unearthed in Old
Town Alexandria, not far from where an 18th-century vessel was unearthed a
few years ago.

The discovery was made at a construction site where Robinson Terminal South
was located, according to a news release Monday from the City of Alexandria.
Early indications are that the two ships are from the same era as the ship
that was found at the Hotel Indigo site in 2015.

Archaeologists believe that that 50-foot ship was built sometime after 1741
and ended up being used as landfill in the late 1700s.

“The discovery of three historic ships in a two-block area is absolutely
incredible,” said acting City Archaeologist Eleanor Breen in a statement.
“There have been very few ships from this era excavated in Virginia or
nationwide.”
Read More
March 17, 2018
Protecting Native American artifacts at Lake Nighthorse
With the anticipated opening of Lake Nighthorse, local agencies are gearing
up for the daunting task of protecting the many Native American cultural
sites at risk to looting and vandalism.

“If you talk to the tribes, they view that area as a sacred place,” said
Kristin Bowen, an archaeologist for the Bureau of Reclamation. “And they are
concerned about people being disrespectful out there and turning it into a
big party spot.”

Lake Nighthorse was built by the Bureau of Reclamation in 2003 as part of
the Animas-La Plata Project, which pumps water from the Animas River to fill
a 123,541-acre-foot reservoir for tribes and water rights holders.
Read More
March 15, 2018
ASU experts share must-see historic sites for Arizona Archaeology Month
Marvel at ancient petroglyphs, miles of canals, stately ruins and exquisite
craftsmanship — no passport required

Arizona has a rich historical legacy, and there’s no better time to
appreciate it than in March, when temperate weather combines with
opportunity for adventure during Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness
Month.

To help you navigate our state’s incredible past this month, four Southwest
archaeologists from Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and
Social Change share their insights on what to see, which mysteries keep them
up at night and how you can get involved in protecting the past.
Read More
March 12, 2018
Uncovering secrets of York Beach shipwreck
YORK BEACH, Maine -- The mystery of the Short Sands Beach shipwreck is being
pieced together by state and local archaeologists and historians -- a
centuries old vessel with secrets that are being uncovered using 21st
century archaeological tools like 3D modeling.

But there is also some historical sleuthing that has been done as well, as a
former York Beach police officer shares his discovery of an 18th century
York notary public’s journal in which a 1769 shipwreck on Short Sands Beach
is described.

This focus comes as the skeleton was once again exposed following last
week’s nor’easter, a fairly rare occurrence that has captured regional and
national attention in the days since.
Read More
March 06, 2018
USS Lexington found: Paul Allen finds aircraft carrier that saved Australia
in World War II
IT was the day that decided Australia’s fate. The aircraft carrier USS
Lexington was lost in 1942 in a desperate bid to block a Japanese invasion
force. Now, 76 years later, she’s back.

Japan had crushed the US battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor. It had swept
Britain, the United States, the Netherlands and Australia aside in South
East Asia. Britain barely held on to Ceylon by the skin of its teeth.

Now a Japanese invasion fleet was advancing on Port Moresby, on Papua New
Guinea’s southern coast. It was feared this would cut Australia off from the
United States.
Read More
March 05, 2018
Nor'easter uncovers wreck of Revolutionary War-era ship on Maine beach
A shipwreck, believed to be more than 160 years old, resurfaced on a Maine
beach Monday morning after a nor'easter ravaged the East Coast over the
weekend and washed away enough sand to a get a glimpse of the historic
structure.

The skeletal structure of the Revolutionary War era boat appeared on Short
Sands Beach in York early Monday. York Police Department posted photos of
the shipwreck on its Facebook page.
Read More
March 04, 2018
500 year-old pistol part found at Kannah Creek archaeological dig
A pistol part found in a Mesa County excavation area could be as many as 500
years old and may bring to light some new information on Spanish colonial
history in Colorado.

The part was found in the Kannah Creek area about 25 miles south of Grand
Junction as part of an archaeological excavation conducted by the Museums of
Western Colorado's Western Investigations Team.

The dig has been ongoing for about seven years and the part was found a few
years ago, but it has been undergoing metallurgic testing, according to
Museums of Western Colorado Curator of History David Bailey.
Read More
March 01, 2018
7,000-Year-Old Native American Burial Site Found Underwater
Venice is Florida's unofficial capital of fossil hunting. Divers and
beachcombers flock to this city on the Gulf Coast, mostly seeking palm-sized
teeth of the Megalodon, the enormous shark species that went extinct 2 and
half million years ago. In the summer of 2016, a diver searching for those
relics picked up a barnacle-crusted jaw from a shallow spot off the shore of
Manasota Key. The specimen sat on a paper plate in his kitchen for a couple
weeks before he realized it was probably a human bone.

The diver sent a picture to Florida’s Bureau of Archaeological Research,
where it landed in front of Ryan Duggins, the bureau’s underwater
archaeology supervisor. A single molar was still attached to the jawbone,
and the tooth’s cusps were worn smooth, likely from a diet of tough foods.
“That’s something we don’t see in modern populations, so that was a quick
indicator we were dealing with a prehistoric individual,” Duggins explains.
Read More
February 28, 2018
Wildfire debris cleanup reveals Native American artifacts
The shiny black piece of obsidian, pointed at one end and with chiseled
edges, lay in plain view on earth scorched bare by the Nuns fire on private
land in Glen Ellen.

David Carrio, a full-blooded Coast Miwok born and raised in Sonoma County,
recognized it immediately as a tool fashioned by his forebears who once
inhabited Marin and southern Sonoma counties, a bountiful land for
hunter-gatherer people, rich in food and laced by freshwater streams.

“It was kind of like spotting a footprint of your ancestors,” he said. “It’s
something that says we are home.”
Read More
February 24, 2018
Archaeologist speaks at New Canaan Library about Connecticut's Earliest
European Settlers
Connecticut state archaeologist Dr. Brian Jones returns to New Canaan
Library to present a talk on the newest findings from three archeological
sites that provide clues to early colonial life. Dr. Jones will speak at the
Library on Tuesday, February 27 at 6:30 p.m. Please register online at
newcanaanlibrary.org.

During the past three years, archaeologists and students unearthed clues
about Connecticut’s early colonial past at three archeological sites: a
buried house cellar within the original John Mason home lot, a buried farm
complex associated with Lt. John Hollister of Glastonbury, and the homestead
of Francis Stiles (later owned by the Ellsworth family of Windsor). Jones
led these excavations and will explain what these recent archaeological
explorations in Windsor and Glastonbury tell us about Connecticut’s earliest
European settlers, and how modern technology helps rediscover these
long-forgotten sites.
Read More
February 23, 2018
White Settlers Buried the Truth About the Midwest’s Mysterious Mound Cities
Pioneers and early archaeologists credited distant civilizations, not Native
Americans, with building these sophisticated complexes

Around 1100 or 1200 A.D., the largest city north of Mexico was Cahokia,
sitting in what is now southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from
St. Louis. Built around 1050 A.D. and occupied through 1400 A.D., Cahokia
had a peak population of between 25,000 and 50,000 people. Now a UNESCO
World Heritage Site, Cahokia was composed of three boroughs (Cahokia, East
St. Louis, and St. Louis) connected to each other via waterways and walking
trails that extended across the Mississippi River floodplain for some 20
square km. Its population consisted of agriculturalists who grew large
amounts of maize, and craft specialists who made beautiful pots, shell
jewelry, arrow-points, and flint clay figurines.
Read More
February 16, 2018
Lab notes: So long Indiana Jones? Archaeology goes high-tech
Jaws have dropped as new laser scanning techniques revealed an ancient
Mexican city that archaeologists say may have had as many buildings as
Manhattan. Groundbreaking lidar scanning is showing the true scale of
Angamuco, which was built by the Purépecha from about 900AD. From that
sublime news to the utterly ridiculous: experts are having to voice their
concern about the rise of DIY faecal transplants. It seems people need to be
warned that, although some really promising science suggests links between
gut microbes and a host of health problems, jumping ahead of scientists and
following a Youtube video to do it at home is a really daft idea.
Read More
February 14, 2018
Surveyors Believe They've Found Old Slave Quarters at Montpelier
ORANGE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) -
A team armed with metal detectors is unearthing history that’s been buried
for two centuries beneath the plantation of President James Madison.

Montpelier's metal-detecting surveyors are sweeping through a wooded area
just down the hill from Madison's former mansion in Orange County, hoping
that they'll unearth artifacts that will help flesh out the full story that
unfolded at the estate. The metal detector team is especially hard at work
right now during the winter months, since the ground is more barren and
easier to see what's hidden beneath it.

Each blue flag staked in the ground marks the location of where they've
detected metal, and red flags identify concentrations of items. So far, the
surveyors have dug up objects like coins, buckles, spoons, and nails.
Read More
February 11, 2018
Archaeology: Serpent Mound might depict a creation story
Serpent Mound in Adams County is the most iconic earthen sculpture ever
created by the ancestors of North American Indians, but now it can be seen
only through a kind of filter.

Why? It was damaged by looting and plowing before it was saved and restored
in the late 1880s by Frederic Putnam of Harvard University’s Peabody Museum.
And Putnam’s restorations were influenced by what he thought the mound
should look like.

He decided that the mound represented a serpent with an egg in its jaws. He
believed it demonstrated a connection between Serpent Mound and various Old
World cultures. Other archaeologists have documented parts of the mound that
Putnam ignored, such as a wishbone-shaped earthwork that wrapped around the
far side of the so-called egg. Evidently, Putnam felt this earthwork made no
sense if the mound actually represented a serpent and an egg, so he didn’t
restore it.
Read More
February 06, 2018
This Archaeological Site In Virginia Should Be On Every History Buff's
Bucket List
Hidden in the landscape of Orange, Virginia, perched on top of rust-colored
dirt and surrounded by trees, is the home of fourth U.S. President James
Madison. Known as Montpelier, the home has been restored to its 18th century
grandeur through the hard work of conservators and archaeologists, a fitting
tribute to the 'Father of the Constitution.' But what makes Montpelier a
site that every history buff should have on their bucket list is the way
that they have grappled with the complexity of a forward-thinking yet
slave-owning president, and made the public a huge part of that discussion.
Read More
February 01, 2018
1,000-Year-Old Hunting Weapon Found in Melting Yukon Ice
CARCROSS, CANADA—CBC News reports that a barbed antler arrow point with a
copper end blade discovered in melting ice last summer has been radiocarbon
dated to 936 years ago. Yukon archaeologist Greg Hare discovered the hunting
artifact in an area frequented by caribou during the summers on the
traditional territory of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation. The blade had
been pointed into the earth, with the arrow half buried in ice, as if it had
just been shot from a bow. “This is one of the oldest copper elements that
we [have] ever found in the Yukon,” Hare said. The copper used to make the
weapon was locally sourced, probably from a creek in southwest Yukon. Hare
explained that in addition to representing the development of metallurgy in
the Yukon, the arrow also marks the period when First Nations hunters were
changing from atlatl (throwing dart) technology to bows and arrows. He
thinks it may have taken two weeks to make the artifact, and that it would
have been a significant loss for the hunter. For more, go to “Where the Ice
Age Caribou Ranged.” Read More
January 17, 2018
Local historian finds rare artifact linked to Abraham Lincoln
A fragile object tucked away in a room of unknown historical treasures has
been found and it is tied to one of the most well-thought-of presidents in
U.S. history, Abraham Lincoln.

Sandy Vasko, director of the Will County Historical Society, discovered a
dried rose a few weeks ago that she said was on the funeral bier of Abraham
Lincoln when his remains were at the capitol in Washington D.C. on April 20,
1865.

The flower is fairly rare, according to Vasko. She knows of only one other
group of flowers and they are in the Library of Congress.
Read More
January 16, 2018
Lucky find gives archeologists glimpse into early hunting technology in
Yukon
Yukon archeologist Greg Hare says it was just luck that led him in 2016 to
find a nearly 1,000-year-old hunting artifact, half exposed in a remote
patch of ice.

Recent radiocarbon dating confirms that the arrow blade point is one of the
earliest examples of copper metallurgy ever found in Yukon.

Hare was travelling with a documentary film crew over the ice patches near
Carcross, Yukon, in July 2016 when they spotted some caribou on a hillside.
Hare had been showing the crew some of sites where he and other
archaeologists have been finding ancient First Nations hunting weapons over
the last 20 years.
Read More
January 16, 2018
UWF receives top award for Luna Settlement project from Society for
Historical Archaeology
The University of West Florida Division of Anthropology and Archaeology
recently received the 2018 Daniel G. Roberts Award for Excellence in Public
Historical Archaeology for the Tristan de Luna y Arellano project. The award
was presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual meeting,
held Jan. 3-6 in New Orleans.
Read More
January 14, 2018
Coastal Waters Threaten Florida's Historic Resources
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — What do St. Augustine's Castillo de San Marcos and
Egmont Key near Tampa have in common? They are two of thousands of Florida's
heritage sites that are vulnerable to rising seas. "Jupiter Lighthouse, Fort
Zachary Taylor in Key West, Fort Jefferson and Fort Pickens in Pensacola —
all of these places are threatened," said Clay Henderson, executive director
of Stetson University's Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience.

The Castillo de San Marcos withstood two sieges in 330 years and changed
hands five times, but its latest invader — the rising Atlantic Ocean —
threatens to erode the historic St. Augustine fortress
Read More
January 11, 2018
Old Berwick presents new Plymouth discoveries
SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — New revelations about trade and relations between the
Pilgrims and Native Americans have come to light since archaeologists
recently uncovered the first intact sections of the early 17th century
settlement in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts.

On Thursday, Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m., the Old Berwick Historical presents Dr.
David B. Landon, who will discuss recent the archaeological excavations made
at his Plymouth field school. The lecture will be held at the Berwick
Academy Arts Center in South Berwick. Admission is free and open to the
public. Donations are gratefully accepted.
Read More
January 06, 2018
Massive Napa archaeological dig continues at future hotel site
Almost a year after it began, archaeologists continue excavating a large
site in downtown Napa – one that could have been home to Native Americans as
long as 2,000 years ago.

Located at the corner of First Street and Silverado Trail, the 11-acre
parcel is the planned home of a 351-room luxury hotel and resort estimated
to cost $200 million.

Because the dig is occurring at a heavily traveled intersection on the edge
of downtown Napa, the project has provoked considerable public interest.
Read More
January 06, 2018
Ancient Sunken Warship, Steamboat and Lighthouse Discovered off Coast of
Mexico
Divers found remnants from not one, but three archaeological features off
the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. A Dutch warship, a British
steamboat and a lighthouse, which sounds like the beginning of an extremely
nerdy joke but is really just a factual list of discoveries.

The relics lie near the small seaport town of Sisal, according to Reuters.
These days, Sisal is a quiet fishing village. In the 18th and 19th
centuries, however, it was a major port for all manner of vessels, according
to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. Some of those
vessels were luckier than others.
Read More
December 23, 2017
Teasing out the secrets of the Raleigh Tavern
When Colonial Williamsburg added a new front porch to the Raleigh Tavern
this past fall, physical clues from a 2016 dig played a key role in steering
the dramatic change to one of the Historic Area’s most iconic structures.

Now that hoard of more than 100,000 artifacts is undergoing an analysis that
could shed still more light on the landmark tavern, which not only grew up
along with Virginia’s colonial capital but also served as a prime social and
political meeting place for elite residents in the years leading to the
Revolution.
Read More
December 20, 2017
Historical archaeology students unearth 200-year-old artifacts buried on UAH
campus
Ben Hoksbergen didn’t know for sure whether the students in his historical
archaeology course at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) would
unearth evidence of the plantation that had once spanned half of campus. But
while he had been prepared for them to be disappointed about not finding
anything, he had never once considered they might be skeptical if they did.

"The first day we did the field survey, I was half-convinced he’d planted
the stuff!" says history major Mariah Wilkinson. "And then when we started
doing shovel testing and finding more, I thought he still might have put it
there." Indeed, it was only after the number of recovered artifacts started
climbing into the thousands that she began to understand the herculean
amount of work such a prank would have entailed. "I realized there’s no way
anyone would put that much effort into planting it," she laughs.
Read More
December 15, 2017
11th Annual Archaeology Fair
On October 14th, the Archaeological Institute of America and the Museum of
Science celebrated the 11th Annual AIA-MOS Archaeology Fair at the museum in
Boston. Thousands of people, including students, teachers, and families,
attended the daylong event and had the opportunity to participate in over a
dozen interactive, engaging, and informative activities presented by 14
organizations from around New England.

The hands-on programs presented at the fair allow participants to experience
archaeology and indulge their inner Indiana Jones. Kids, parents, and
everyone in between had a great time exploring multiple aspects of
archaeology and participating in activities involving archaeological digs,
tool making, shipwrecks, and much more.
Read More
December 12, 2017
City halts work after earth-movers grade Tucson's birthplace site
City officials halted and then moved work for a $7 million project Monday
after historic preservation activists complained that earth movers were
grading a crucial archaeological site at or near Tucson’s birthplace.

A private contractor was working Monday morning on a landfill remediation
project at a site that is part of what activists hope will be the future
Tucson Origins Heritage Park. The landfill, just west of the Santa Cruz
River near downtown, lies near where the oldest known agriculture in the
United States began around 2,100 B.C., or 4,100 years ago.
Read More
December 05, 2017
Archaeologists Uneasy as Trump Shrinks Bears Ears Monument Lands
A US government plan to slash protections for one of North America’s richest
and best-preserved archaeological landscapes has prompted a wave of concern
among researchers. On December 4, US President Donald Trump announced that
he had cut the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah from 547,000 hectares to
82,000. That removes protections for thousands of Native American cultural
sites, some as many as 13,000 years old.
Read More
December 05, 2017
An archaeological dig unearths one of the earliest slave remains in Delaware
A male skeleton of African ancestry was found at Avery’s Rest, a late
17th-century plantation in Rehoboth, Del. (Kate D. Sherwood/Smithsonian
Institution)

The blow to the head of the man in grave 10 was so severe that it chipped
off a bone near his right eyebrow, fractured part of his face, and probably
helped to kill him.

He was about 35 years old and likely a slave. He had grooves in his front
teeth where he had clenched his clay pipe as he worked, and evidence in his
spine that he was engaged in hard labor.

It’s not known exactly what landed him in a hexagonal coffin in the sandy
soil north of Delaware’s Rehoboth Bay 300 years ago: An assault, or an
accident?
Read More
December 01, 2017
Swamped: Rising seas to leave thousands of historical sites in the Southeast
underwater
New studies show the oceans could rise more and faster than scientists
originally thought. Veuer's Nick Cardona (@nickcardona93) has that story.
Buzz60

Iconic locations from American history — from Jamestown to Cape Canaveral
and Charleston to Cape Hatteras — could be underwater by the end of the
century due to sea-level rise from global warming, according to a study
published Wednesday.
Read More
December 01, 2017
In Alaska's Thawing Permafrost, Humanity's 'Library Is on Fire'
The Internet connection is bad. As Herman Ahsoak speaks into his iPhone, the
video chat freezes periodically, his face fixed in strange contortions on
the screen.

Ahsoak is in Utqiagvik, Alaska, formerly known as Barrow, the northernmost
community in the United States; he is speaking to a class of high school
students in Kaktovik, the only community within the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, more than 300 miles east. A member of the Inupiaq, whose people have
lived on the North Slope for thousands of years, Ahsoak is demonstrating how
to make an ulu—a knife used to skin and clean animals.
Read More
November 27, 2017
A fantastic place to hang out for 5,000 years
Renovated Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, administered by ASU, offers
modern visitors a glimpse into the ancient past and its people

Out on the far northwestern edge of the Valley, where the pavement turns to
sand, is a place people have been visiting for 5,000 years.

Now, instead of yucca sandals and turkey-feather kilts, visitors wear rubber
flip-flops and yoga pants, but they still come for the same reason: “It’s
been a fantastic place to hang out for 5,000 years,” said Arizona State
University archaeologist Emily Fioccoprile.
Read More
November 23, 2017
1,200-year-old Native American artifacts unearthed in Westbrook
WESTBROOK, Conn. (WTNH) — An ancient find along the shoreline. Excavator Tom
Maynard has been digging around Connecticut for more than 30 years.

When he stumbled upon Native American artifacts dating back at least 1,200
years, he knew it was a big deal.

“I called Gary and said, ‘I got a good one here,'” said Maynard.

Thanksgiving History: Stuffing v.s. Dressing: What do you call it?

He made the find while clearing land for new home construction on Mohawk
Road in Westbrook where Native Americans used to camp.
Read More
November 22, 2017
Rare 400-Year-Old Map Traces Indigenous Roots in Mexico
This 1593 map shows southern Puebla from the church of Todos Santos (now
northeast of Mexico City) and Lake Texcoco, to the church of Santa Cruz
Huitziltepec, Pue (lower right). The map also reveals the genealogy and land
ownership for the Nahuatl "de Leon" family from 1480 to 1593.

A rare, indigenous-made map of Mexico from the era of the Nahuatl people's
first contact with Europeans is now in the collection of the U.S. Library of
Congress.

The library announced yesterday (Nov. 21) that it acquired the so-called
Codex Quetzalecatzin(also known as the Mapa de Ecatepec-Huitziltepec) and
that a digitally preserved copy is now online.

For more than 100 years, the map had passed through private collections,
including that of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. [Cracking
Codices: 10 of the Most Mysterious Ancient Manuscripts]
Read More
November 22, 2017
‘Underground Savannah’ in peril
THE ANNUAL "Places in Peril" list released each year by the Georgia Trust
for Historic Preservation is usually heavy on old mansions and firehouses
and train depots and the like.

This year, one entry encompasses a whole city — but a city you can’t see.

“Underground Savannah” comes in at number 10 on the list. The effort to
include Savannah’s as-yet-undiscovered archaeological record on the yearly
tally was spearheaded by Dan Elliott, President and Research Archaeologist
at the Lamar Institute.

“We came up with the name as sort of a play on Underground Atlanta,” Dan
explains. “Very little of the history from Savannah’s colonial era has seen
the light of day.”
Read More
November 17, 2017
The Archaeologists Saving Miami's History From the Sea
MIAMI—When Hurricane Irma sprinted toward Miami-Dade County, Jeff Ransom
couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t just worried about gusts shattering windows, or
sheets of rain drowning the highway—that’s far from unusual near his home in
Broward County, where extreme weather verges on routine, and patches of U.S.
1 are regularly submerged.

Ransom, the county archaeologist, was preoccupied with an oak tree and its
350-year-old roots. If the tree capsized with enough intensity, he worried,
the flailing roots could dislodge human remains.

On a blazing blue morning in early November, weeks after the storm, we trek
to the site of the Tequesta Native American burial mound that kept Ransom
awake.
Read More
November 14, 2017
Discovering a Midden on a Cape Cod Shore
Late one afternoon a few weeks ago, I took a walk along a Wellfleet beach
facing Cape Cod Bay. At its start, this beach is backed by a low line of
dunes, but after a few hundred feet, the dunes rise to become a low glacial
bluff, a mix of sand and clay perhaps 20 feet high. After another several
hundred feet I came upon a stretch of bluff that showed signs of severe
recent erosion. The face of the bluff had been gouged away, and a number of
trees and shrubs lay like stranded wrecks on the beach.

The cause of the erosion seemed obvious. Just beyond the stretch of
unprotected bluff a massive rock wall had been erected to cover the face of
the bluff and protect the line of houses above it. Because of the nature of
longshore currents, any time you have a natural glacial bluff butting up
against an artificial seawall, you can pretty much guarantee that the former
will suffer from accelerated erosion. That is what had happened here.
Read More
November 13, 2017
It Belongs in a Museum in Alexandria
Alexandria Archaeology faces wary developers and amateur treasure hunters.
Garrett Fesler isn’t one of the bad guys.

Alexandria is an old city, so when a construction crew starts to dig into
the ground, there’s a chance they might stumble on an item of historical
significance. That’s why Fesler and other members of the City of Alexandria
Archaeologists get involved with projects, sometimes before digging starts.
When they meet with landowners in the city, Fesler says there can be one of
two reactions.

“Some are excited and happy to work with us,” said Fesler. “Others have
little interest in doing so. People often assume it’s going to cost them
money if Alexandria Archaeology comes in to do work.”

But Fesler says while challenges can arise, the goal isn’t to stall
construction or add to costs.
Read More
November 12, 2017
Spring and Seventh Street ‘rich site for cataloging New Bedford’s early
history’
NEW BEDFORD — Pieces of pottery, glass, porcelain, tobacco pipes and animal
bones dating back to the 1800s laid in small plastic bags at the site of
what will later be Abolition Row Park at Spring and Seventh streets.

“It’s a rich site for cataloging New Bedford’s early history,” said Lee
Blake, president of the New Bedford Historical Society, who arrived at the
site as the 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. dig was wrapping up.

“It’s an educational opportunity for a lot of us,” she noted.

Abolition Row Park, expected to be completed next year, is a $190,000
project funded by the city’s historical society with the mission of telling
the story of abolitionists who once lived in the neighborhood.
Read More
November 09, 2017
Digging up the past
MOUNT MORRIS — In order to make way for the future we must first dig up the
past.

Justin Tubiolo of the Mount Morris Archaeology Team invited Genesee Country
Express up to witness what they have discovered in the ground near the Mill
Mansion.

There has been a lot of work done at the Mills Mansion as well as the
parking lot for The Arc of Livingston and Wyoming Counties, and Matt
O’Dell’s property next to the mansion.

Gen. William Mills built the mansion in 1838, but before that had a log
cabin and log house built on the same patch of land.

Artifacts go back hundreds and even thousands of years deep in the dirt in
that area.
Read More
November 03, 2017
The First Americans May Have Migrated Along a Coastal ‘Kelp Highway’
A conventional belief about the first settlement of the Americas holds that
people with ancestry from Siberia in northeastern Asia traveled into North
America across the Bering Strait when it was exposed as a land bridge during
the last ice age roughly 13,500 years ago.

These first settlers were thought to be the likely creators of the
prehistoric Clovis culture. Remnants of this culture primarily consist of
stone tools that were first excavated near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1932.
Little is known about the Paleo-Indians who made the tools, but the remains
of an infant boy named Anzick-1 have been associated with the Clovis. DNA
analysis of Anzick-1 in 2014 revealed a genetic connection to modern Native
American populations.
Read More
October 27, 2017
Experts have uncovered remains at the first permanent English colony. But
whose bones are they?
JAMESTOWN, Va. — The ancient thigh bone was that of a robust man, a chap in
his 40s, with wear and tear in his joints and a hip socket that showed he
had been a horseman and a man of status.

Could these be the remains of the long-lost lord — the savior of the English
colony here, the aristocrat who died at sea, and whose body was likely
carried to Virginia in a cask of wine?

Was this Thomas West, better known as Lord De La Warr, whose name —
Americanized to Delaware — has left its imprint on the national landscape?
Read More
October 25, 2017
Hurricane Irma might have unearthed Calusa artifacts in Marco Island
preserve
Archaeologists are sifting through the root balls of trees downed by
Hurricane Irma, looking for Calusa Indian artifacts at the Otter Mound
Preserve on Marco Island.

Hurricane Irma is giving a team of archaeologists a one-time chance to look
into the past.

Irma, which made landfall Sept. 10 on Marco Island, left behind piles of
debris, flooded streets and wrecked homes all over Southwest Florida,
tearing apart vulnerable lives that are still not back to normal.

But as some hurricane victims look to the future, archaeologists have their
eyes on what they think could be unearthed pieces of an ancient Calusa
Indian past in the root balls of downed trees at the Otter Mound Preserve on
Marco.
Read More
October 19, 2017
Native American Secrets Lie Buried in Huge Shell Mounds
DAMARISCOTTA, Me. — Alice Kelley stood on the bank of a tidal river, next to
a grassy bluff dotted with apple trees. This is not just a scenic spot:
Hidden beneath the grass is a massive pile of oyster shells left by Native
Americans. And hidden among those shells are rich, detailed stories
thousands of years old.

Middens like this one line Maine’s tortured shoreline. “We know that there
are over 2,000 shell heaps on the coast of Maine,” said Dr. Kelley, an
associate research professor at the University of Maine Climate Change
Institute. “In virtually every case here in southern Maine, they are
disappearing or they are gone.”
Read More
October 18, 2017
Blank cartridges, metal ammunition belt links found at Fort McCoy
Archaeology work has been ongoing at Fort McCoy for more than 30 years, and
archaeologists contracted by Fort McCoy to come across many military-related
artifacts.

Recently, while excavating at a site at the installation, archaeologists
recovered 33 .30-caliber blank cartridges and metal ammunition belt links.

The .30-caliber blank cartridges had a headstamp of “LC 81.” The headstamp
indicates the cartridges were manufactured in 1981 at the Lake City Army
Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri.
Read More
October 13, 2017
Slave House Unearthed at Site of Thomas Jefferson's Plantation Estate
Excavations at an estate once owned by Thomas Jefferson have unearthed an
array of archaeological finds, from 8,000-year-old spear heads to evidence
of slave accommodation.

Archeologists working at Poplar Forest, where Jefferson had a house and
plantation, have been carrying out work to prepare for a new road that will
run through the site.

Among the finds was a substance called daub, used in the construction of log
cabins. At least one site where this was found was likely populated by
slaves, who in Jefferson’s time would have lived in such structures.
Read More
October 11, 2017
Gold coin sheds new light on 5th-century Swedish island massacre
The discovery of gold rings and coins on a Swedish island sheds new light on
the history of the area, and could give insight into the motives for a
massacre which took place in the fifth century, archaeologists told The
Local on Wednesday.

The team working at Sandby Borg, a ringfort on Öland off Sweden's
south-eastern coast, said the discovery was the "find of the year".

Archaeologists Clara Alfsdotter and Sophie Vallulv last week uncovered two
rings and a coin, which confirm a theory that the island was in close
contact with the Roman Empire. Close by, the team found pieces of Roman
glass in an area which was once an important house.
Read More
October 06, 2017
Cocoa canoe washed up by Hurricane Irma may date to 1600s
There's a 50-50 chance that the wood used to make the canoe that washed
ashore in Cocoa during Hurricane Irma dates between 1640 and 1680 —
generations before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The dugout canoe was discovered Sept. 11 along the Indian River Lagoon
shoreline by Cocoa photographer Randy "Shots" Lathrop. He was checking out
hurricane damages on his bicycle in the Indian River Drive neighborhood.

A Florida Division of Historical Resources archaeologist inspected the
15-foot log vessel, and radiocarbon dating results were released Thursday.
The tests determined there is:
Read More
October 04, 2017
Pittsford class hunts fossils at Bundy Hill
JEROME – At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, a bus filled with Pittsford High
School students made its way through a landscape of steep hills and gravel
slopes before coming to a stop near a large open valley.

The students, under direction from Pittsford world history and archaeology
teacher, Scott Lovell, spread out in different directions to scour Bundy
Hill Offroad in Jerome for hidden finds, covered over with dust and rock.

“We’re looking for certain rocks like jade or fossils or like glassy-like
materials and stuff. Just whatever talks to us is what Mr. Lovell says,”
said freshman Jaidyn Hinkley.
Read More
September 26, 2017
Archaeological study sheds new light on Battle of Wood Lake
WOOD LAKE — A modern archaeological examination of the Wood Lake Battlefield
offers new insights into what is considered the decisive engagement of the
U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

The use of modern technology has allowed a team of archaeologists to recover
nearly two dozen conical bullets and musket balls fired by the combatants on
the site on Sept. 23, 1862, and identify the locations of the U.S. soldiers
and Dakota warriors during the fight along a steep ravine and former
military road in what is now Yellow Medicine County.

The examination debunked a long-held belief of where the final battle
occurred
Read More
September 15, 2017
Hurricane Irma unearths canoe in Indian River in Brevard
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - Hurricane Irma uncovered a piece of history from the
bottom of the Indian River when a dugout canoe was brought to the surface.

Officials from the Florida Department of State’s Bureau of Archeological
Research in the Division of Historical Resources said they are working to
preserve the the canoe, estimated to weigh 600 to 700 pounds.

Randy Lathrop, of Cocoa, shared the news of his discovery on Facebook with
his friends.

"I got to it before it was picked up by the county with all the other storm
debris and placed in a landfill. I'll certainly keep everyone updated on
this progress, promise," he said in his Facebook post.
Read More
September 10, 2017
99 Years Later, Navy Probing Warship Disaster Off Long Island
The 15,000-ton armored cruiser U.S.S. San Diego, the only major United
States Navy warship lost by the United States during World War I, lies in a
watery grave about 10 miles off Fire Island, N.Y., where for nearly a
century the corroding hulk has kept the secret of why it sunk.

Six sailors died when the ship capsized and came to a rest 110 feet below
the surface of the Atlantic Ocean about 28 minutes after an explosion ripped
a hole in its hull well below the water line.
Read More
September 07, 2017
Participate in an Archaeological Dig under the Thomas Edison Center
EDISON, NJ - The Middlesex County Office of Arts and History invites you to
take part in an active archaeology dig at the site of Thomas Edison’s home
in Menlo Park. This free event is scheduled for Sept. 23 and 24 from 11 a.m.
to 4 p.m. at the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park located at 37 Christie
St. in Edison.

Join us for an archaeological dig in an attempt to locate the foundations of
Edison’s home and any associated artifacts. This open house archaeology
project will be conducted by the Middlesex County Office of Arts and History
in conjunction with the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park and the
Archaeological Society of New Jersey.
Read More
September 06, 2017
Investigating the archaeology of wildland fire suppression from Cement Ridge
Lookout
SPEARFISH — Black Hills National Forest officials are inviting the public to
a one-hour guided tour of Cement Ridge Lookout at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

The lookout is located one mile west of the South Dakota border, located on
the Bearlodge Ranger District in Wyoming.

Topics covered during the tour will include; the past history of Cement
Ridge Lookout, the purpose of the National Historic Lookout Register, a
history of wildland fire suppression on the Black Hills National Forest and
tips and tricks for land owners to make their properties safer from wildland
fires.
Read More
September 06, 2017
Lynne Goldstein: MSU Campus Archaeology, the future
Lynne Goldstein is a professor of anthropology and director of the Campus
Archaeology Program.

I created and direct the Michigan State University Campus Archaeology
Program and, as of May 2018, I will be retiring from the university
(although not from archaeology). The job of directing and administering MSU
CAP will go to Stacey Camp, who has just arrived in East Lansing so that we
can overlap for a year. MSU CAP is in very capable hands, and I am confident
that the program will not only survive, but thrive.

Historic archaeology, in general, and campus archaeology, in particular,
were never my primary research interests. But career paths are rarely
straight, and I have found that one does best taking advantage of
opportunities along the way. Given this, I have conducted excavations of
several large and small historic cemeteries across the United States, and I
created this campus program, which is primarily (although not exclusively)
focused on historic sites.
Read More
August 30, 2017
More than 50 million artifacts from Texas’ past kept at UT lab
The drawer opens wide to reveal its prize: scores of woven sandals, each
hundreds of years old.

The astonishingly well-preserved shoes, tucked away in a North Austin
archive, were discovered inside the Ceremonial Cave at Fort Bliss in West
Texas. Scholars suggest that they were left behind in the dry rock shelter
as gifts from the faithful. There, desert conditions have ensured that this
Native American apparel survives to tell a concrete story about a
little-known Texas past.

The leathery trove also reminds us that one of Austin’s best museums is not
a museum at all.

Although the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory contains more than 50
million precious objects, access is tightly restricted. Very few people even
know where on the grounds of the J.J. Pickle Research Campus this University
of Texas facility is located.
Read More
August 28, 2017
Shays’ Settlement In Vermont: A Story Of Revolt And Archaeology
The ruins of Daniel Shays's fortified settlement reveal the hidden story of
the famous rebellion. Shays and the Regulators founded the settlement deep
in the Vermont wilderness after fleeing the uprising they led in 1787 in
Massachusetts.

Rediscovered in 1997 and under study since 2013, these remnants divulge
secrets of Shays's life that previously remained unknown, including his
connection to Millard Filmore and the Anti-Federalist lawyer John Bay.
Read More
August 23, 2017
Scientists solve mystery of US Civil War submarine
Researchers say they’ve solved one of the most enduring mysteries of the
American Civil War: what caused the puzzling demise of the H.L. Hunley, the
first combat submarine in history to sink an enemy warship.

The Confederate craft famously disappeared with all its crew on 17 February
1864, just after destroying the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbour. The
Hunley’s wreck was not found until 1995. When it was raised from the seabed
in 2000, the skeletons of its eight-man crew were still at their stations,
with no evidence of escape attempts.
Read More
August 18, 2017
Archaeology Dig on NY Colonial Military Site Wrapping Up
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A six-week archaeological dig on a Colonial-era
British military site on the upper Hudson River is wrapping up.

A team of volunteers and students has been excavating areas on Rogers Island
at Fort Edward, 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Albany.

Thousands of British and Colonial American troops were encamped at Fort
Edward during the French and Indian War from 1755-1759.
Read More
August 12, 2017
Archaeologists discover lost native American civilisation
The fate of a Native American culture that disappeared seven centuries ago
may have been uncovered in an unexpected location.

It has long remained a mystery why the Anasazi, meaning ancient ones,
vanished from Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park without a trace in the
13th century.

Experts studying the DNA of ancient turkey bones have found that the group,
also known as the Ancestral Puebloans, may have moved out of their homeland
to what is now New Mexico.
Read More
August 10, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse: New Mexico Chaco Canyon Rock Art Shows Ancient Eclipse
It turns out that nearly 1,000 years ago our ancestors were just as keen to
share news about a solar eclipse, but in the absence of smartphones or
computers they used more primitive means to depict the stunning solar event:
rock art.

Researchers believe they have discovered a rock carving in New Mexico’s
Chaco Canyon that represents a total eclipse that occurred more than 900
years ago. The engraving, known as a petroglyph, shows a circle with curved,
intricate swirling emissions issuing from it. Around the circle, believed to
depict the sun, human figures can be seen in different positions and engaged
in different activities.
Read More
August 06, 2017
Luna Site Confirmed As Largest Mid-16th Century Spanish Settlement In The
Southeast
University of West Florida archaeology students and researchers have spent
the summer uncovering more details about the 1559 Luna Settlement.

The Tristan de Luna Settlement overlooking Pensacola Bay existed for just
two years until 1561.

After its discovery in the fall of 2015, one of the primary goals of UWF
researchers was to determine the spatial extent of the site. Now, after two
summer field schools - conducted by the UWF Archaeology Institute - and over
900 shovel tests, they have a good idea.
Read More
August 05, 2017
The delightful (and dastardly) secrets of the birth of America: Inside the
colonial site of Jamestown, where starving English settlers feasted on rats
and even other HUMANS
The archaeologists had no reason to suspect foul play when they first
unearthed the human skull.

It looked much like all the others extracted from the clay soil at Jamestown
in the US state of Virginia. But when they examined it more closely, they
noticed something deeply disturbing.

Knife cuts had been deliberately scored on the front of the skull and the
rear had been brutally smashed open with a heavy object. It was clear that
Jane – for that's the name the archaeologists gave to this unknown English
adolescent – had been butchered and eaten by her fellow settlers.
Read More
August 04, 2017
Archaeology Campers Uncover Evidence of Historic Barn Foundation at Jacobus
Vanderveer House & Museum
BEDMINSTER, NJ - You never know what will happen when you dig in the dirt.
That was especially true this month for eighteen children participating in a
week-long archaeology camp at Bedminster’s historic Jacobus Vanderveer
House. They uncovered evidence of an early barn foundation and other
outbuildings on the property. The field work was conducted last week at two
2 ½ by 10-foot trenches, each extending north to south, at the site of an
1850’s barn that was destroyed by fire in the 1950’s.

“This archaeology camp was more than just about playing in the dirt,” said
Craig Sutherland, president of the nonprofit Friends of the Jacobus
Vanderveer House, which offered the program in partnership with the Township
of Bedminster Recreation Department. “It involved an authentic field study,
led by archaeologists from Hunter Research Inc., of Trenton, who conducted
preliminary field work at the proposed barn site in 2007. What the campers
found will assist us in determining the location at which to reconstruct our
recently acquired 1830 Dutch barn. It helps us get as close to the original
footprint as possible.”
Read More
August 03, 2017
Archaeologists, volunteers work Native American dig at Midewin
Professional archaeologists and volunteers have been working on a "late
prehistoric site" at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, where a Native
American village was located "just before Europeans arrived" in late 17th
century explorations.

Last Saturday, Midewin archaeologist Joe Wheeler led a group on a
"Prehistory on the Prairie" outing to the site, which is believed to have
been occupied by Native Americans in the late 1600s — more than 200 years
before the first European settlers arrived in the area.
Read More
August 01, 2017
Has the tomb of the first historian of the Americas been discovered?
This beginning of this story could have been lifted out of a host of mystery
films or novels: a group of men are working at a religious building that is
centuries old, and, by chance, when they remove a layer of soil, they
discover a crypt, covered in rubble and lost to the sands of time. But this
is no fictional tale

The story dates back to 1992, when work was going on to transfer the
pantheon where Christopher Columbus was buried from the cathedral of Santo
Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. The project was part of the
many acts staged that year to commemorate the mariner’s arrival in the
Americas five centuries earlier. But unexpectedly, another tomb was
discovered.
Read More

The Lost Colony Center for Science and Research
traces descendants of Lost Colony and Croatan Indians. After major
discovery, Director Fred Willard founded The Lost Colony Center to find
relocated fort and Lost Colony descendants.
Website

The Archaeological Conservancy, established in
1980, is the only national non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring
and preserving the best of our nation's remaining archaeological sites.
Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Conservancy also operates regional
offices in Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, and California.
Website

The invention of metal detecting technology during the Second World
War allowed the development of a hobby that has traditionally been
vilified by archaeologists as an uncontrollable threat to the proper
study of the past. This book charts the relationship between
archaeologists and metal detectors over the past fifty odd years
within an international context. It questions whether the great
majority of metal detectors need be seen as a threat or, as some
argue, enthusiastic members of the public with a valid and
legitimate interest in our shared heritage, charting the expansion
of metal detecting as a phenomenon and examining its role within
traditional archaeology. A particular strength of the book is its
detailed case studies, from South Africa, the USA, Poland and
Germany, where metal detectors have worked with, and contributed
significantly towards, archaeological understanding and research.
With contributions from key individuals in both the metal detecting
and archaeological communities, this publication highlights the need
for increased understanding and cooperation and asks a number of
questions crucial to the development of a long term relationship
between archaeologists and metal detectors.

Dec 13, 2010
Bones of Contention By ROBERT L. KELLY
Published: December 12, 2010
New York Times See Below

LAST winter, the Department of the Interior issued regulations for the
disposition of ancient American Indian remains and funerary objects that
cannot be affiliated with modern tribes. Unfortunately, these new rules
will destroy a crucial source of knowledge about North American history
and halt a dialogue between scientists and Indian tribes that has been
harmonious and enlightening.

The new regulations help carry out the 20-year-old Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a law that was devised by
tribes, scientists and museum officials. It was a compromise between the
tribes’ sensitivity to having the remains of their ancestors excavated
and analyzed and the archaeologists’ desire to learn what bones can
reveal about ancient peoples’ diet, health, migration patterns, marriage
practices and so on.

Scientists acknowledged that it is wrong to study the dead in ways that
insult the living. Therefore, they relinquished control over the 25
percent of all catalogued remains at museums and other institutions that
could be culturally affiliated with federally recognized tribes. Some
tribes have reburied these remains, others have stored them, and some
have asked institutions to continue to hold them.

In making arrangements to repatriate these culturally affiliated remains
over the past 20 years, archaeologists and tribal leaders opened new
lines of communication with each other.

This was a welcome development, because relations between them had been
touchy, at best. Many American Indians had questioned the need for
research on their ancestors’ bones, and considered archaeological digs
to be insulting, or simple theft. Tensions were often high. I still
recall the moment in 1979, when I was starting out in archaeology, that
two young Paiute men approached me in a bar in Fallon, Nev., flashing
knives, and warned me not to “dig up” their grandfather.

Today, many tribes have a more positive view of archaeology. More
American Indians study the science today, and tribes have their own
archaeology programs, and work with outside researchers. I am working
with the Salish-Kootenai and Blackfeet tribes in Glacier National Park,
in Montana, to study archaeological and paleoecological information in
receding ice patches.

The new federal regulations undermine this progress. In an effort to
repatriate the 124,000 sets of remains that cannot be affiliated with
recognized tribes using current evidence, they ignore the importance of
tribal connections to ancient remains — that essential common value that
drew the tribes and the scientists together. Institutions must now offer
to repatriate remains to tribes that have no demonstrable cultural
affiliation with them.

In some situations, under the new rules, institutions are directed to
simply “transfer control of culturally unidentifiable human remains to
other Indian tribes” or, in clear violation of the law, “to an Indian
group that is not federally recognized.” If all else fails, institutions
can simply re-inter the unidentifiable remains near where they were
found.

The main objective, it seems, is to get rid of the remains however
possible, as quickly as possible. The regulations clearly undermine the
law’s compromise, and Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, should
rescind them.

Those who wrote the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act recognized that the older remains are, the more difficult it is to
affiliate them with any modern tribe. But science continues to develop
methods that can help determine cultural affiliation. This work should
be allowed to continue. Someday, all the skeletal remains may be
repatriated to their proper descendants. In the process we will have
learned much, through archaeological analysis, about the dead, and much
more, through dialogue between scientists and tribes, about the living.

Robert L. Kelly is a professor of anthropology at the University of
Wyoming.

National Parks Traveler Commentary, news, and life in
America's ParksMetal Detectors at Palo Alto Battlefield?
These "Hunters" were on a Mission. Over two dozen people were seen scouring
parts of the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park with metal
detectors in recent weeks, and then collecting historic artifacts they
discovered during their search. What was going on…and where is Palo Alto
Battlefield?
Read More

Volunteer Metal Detectorist and Archaeology
Here is an interesting article post by the National Park Service. The
conclusions of the article are very positive.Conclusion from the
Article:
This project clearly shows the level of information collection possible
using a group of dedicated volunteer metal detector hobbyists. Without the
metal detector hobbyists volunteering their time, none of the new
information about the Kings Mountain battle would be available to the
public. The relationship has been one of mutual benefit, as volunteers are
able to work in places to which they would not otherwise have access and
they can handle and photograph the artifacts found. This gives them
“bragging rights” and additional information about material culture.

The archeologists, on the other hand, have a cadre of hard working
volunteers. The volunteers are knowledgeable about the material culture and
each individual is an important resource. They are willing to travel great
distances, sometime at personal expense, to participate in the fieldwork. In
short, park archeologists would be unable to do this work without the skills
that these volunteers bring.
Read More

Pastport in Time (A Volunteer Program by the USDA
Forest Service)
Many of the projects undertaken by the Forest Service seeks metal
detectorist volunteers .Read
More by Selecting Current Projects

Battlefield Restoration & Archaeological Volunteer
Organization

The volunteers of BRAVO, a nonprofit organization, work to promote
public interest in history and archaeology in conjunction with the New
Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry, State Park Service.

BRAVO's purpose is to preserve, publicize, and enhance New Jersey's cultural
heritage, from prehistory to the recent past, with an emphasis on our
Revolutionary War heritage.
Read More

Hunting History: Archaeologists and detectorists to
continue survey of Rosalia's Steptoe BattlefieldSpokane
treasure hunters helping look for clues about what really happened during
battle nearly 150 years ago.
Read More

Archaeology - The Archaeology of Battlefields
A publication of the Archaeological Institute of AmericaFrom the
article:
Who came up with the idea of using volunteer teams with metal detectors to
survey fields? It's kind of a low-tech, low-cost remote sensing. Metal
detectors are simply low-cost near-surface electrical conductivity meters.
They are a geophysical method. When Richard Fox and I began planning the
first Little Bighorn investigations we were well aware of work from the
1950s on that site and others where metal detectors were used to find battle
artifacts. Those initial efforts had mixed results due to detector
technology of that time. By the 1980s detectors were much more sophisticated
and sensitive to buried metals, so it was a natural choice of equipment to
use on a battle site where firearms predominated We also realized that we
did not have the time or funding to conduct a traditional archaeological
inventory and testing program, so using volunteer metal detectors seemed to
be a reasonable alternative. As they say, the rest is history. Later I did a
computer simulation on the Little Bighorn metal-detected artifact find
locations by laying a shovel test array over the field, with 5 and 10 meter
spacing, to see how many of the 5,000 artifacts we would have found using
traditional shovel testing methods--the results were truly surprising, with
fewer than 10 falling in any of 50 cm shovel test locales. These findings
have been borne out over and over again on other battlefield work throughout
this country and in Europe. I, by no means, advocate replacing traditional
archaeological investigations with metal detecting, rather I espouse adding
the detector and a knowledgeable operator to the archaeologist's toolkit.
Read More

Society for American Archaeology
(SAA)
Metal Detectorists Participating in Archaeology Research This
site list nine to ten situations where volunteer metal detectorist worked on
archaeological project both in the U.S. and the U.K.
Read More

Archaeology and Metal Detecting
By Alex HuntTreasures from the fieldsMetal detectorists. You
may have seen them singly, or in pairs, or in groups. Come rain or
shine, sweeping across the fields, listening attentively to the signal
from their machine, eyes fixed to the ground. Then a signal, and a pause
to examine the source, and a careful moving away of the soil, to examine
the focus of their attention.
Read More

Archaeology of the Battle of the Little Big
HornThe project archeologists chose to view the battlefield
as a crime scene and by using a combination of forensic techniques such
as studies of firing pin marks on cartridge cases and rifling marks on
bullets, and standard archeological field, laboratory, and analytical
techniques they have been able to determine the variety of weapons used
by the various participants.
Read More